A Tethered Power Supply Concept for Large-Scale UAV-Based Antenna Near-Field Measurements

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) gain popularity in the antenna measurement domain. Measuring the near field (NF) of large-scale antennas or antenna arrays can take up to several hours. In contrast, the non-stop flight time of a battery powered UAV is commonly limited to the order of tens of minutes. In order to overcome this limitation, the concept and implementation of a tethered power supply for UAVs are presented. The resulting non-stop flight time allows for faster and denser sampling of the antenna under test (AUT) NF without the corresponding start and land maneuvers for replacing the battery. Detailed electromagnetic interference (EMI) measurements, as well as a fallback battery power solution for safe and reliable operation of the UAV are presented.