Spherical Phaseless Antenna Measurements Experimental Validation of a Two-Antenna-Positions Procedure

The phaseless characterization of antennas enables to reduce the cost and to ease the measurement of radiating systems, especially at high frequencies. The complex near field is retrieved from the acquisition of the antenna radiated field magnitude only, thanks to appropriate phase retrieval algorithms. Thus, a two-scan approach combined to a Gerchberg–Saxton algorithm has proven to lead to accurate phase retrievals. However, instead of measuring the field on two spherical surfaces of different radii as conventionally performed, we propose to measure the magnitude of the field on a single sphere but for two antenna positions. This new strategy is easier to implement in a number of measurement setups. Numerical and experimental validations in a commercial, arch-based, measurement system are shown and discussed.