Antenna Calibration for Near-Field Material Characterization

A novel antenna calibration method is presented for near-field problems, such as material characterization or inverse scattering. The procedure accurately accounts for differences between simulations of objects close to antennas and the equivalent experimental measurements. It is based on the method of moments (MoM) solution to surface integral scattering equations. An efficient choice of macrobasis functions (MBFs) is applied to the antenna, which reduces the computational costs by several orders of magnitude. The calibration involves scanning a target of known constitution through the antenna near field, assigning a tuning parameter to each MBF and optimizing said parameters, so as to reduce the error between antenna simulations and measurements. This adjusts the antenna's simulated surface currents, so as to more accurately represent the currents on the experimental apparatus. Thus, an efficient antenna model is obtained, which more accurately represents the real-world antenna. The calibration technique is verified by applying it to the characterization of dielectric objects of known but arbitrary shape.