Shielded Anechoic Chamber for Antenna Characterization

For antenna measurements, a shielded anechoic chamber is available at our institute.

• Antennas-under-test can be characterized accurately from 800 MHz up to 40 GHz.

• Absolute gain measurements can be carried out with +/- 0.5 dB accuracy.

The chamber occupies a volume of 5m x 5m x 5m and its outside-to-inside isolation is better than 85 dB for electromagnetic waves with frequencies up to 100 GHz.

The useable volume for RF measurements on antennas under test is much smaller: approx. 1m x 1m x 1m. For this reason, we need to measure antenna properties in the near field, rather than in the far field. The chamber’s near field scanner is based on a spherical geometry with 2-axis positioner.

Finally, the near field measurement data are transformed mathematically to obtain the desired antenna characteristics in the far field.

The shielded anechoic chamber is heavily used in research projects and academic teaching. Antenna measurement services are also offered commercially to external parties.

 

References

• David Löschenbrand, Christoph F. Mecklenbräuker:
  Fast Antenna Characterization via a Sparse Spherical Multipole Expansion
  in Proc. 2016 4th International Workshop on Compressed Sensing Theory and its Applications to Radar, Sonar and Remote Sensing (CoSeRa), pp. 212 – 216. Aachen, Germany, 2016
• David Löschenbrand, Gregor Lasser, Christoph F. Mecklenbräuker:
  Reflection Suppression in Anechoic Chambers for Spherical Near-Field Antenna Measurements using Modal Filtering
  COST Action IC 1004, TD(15)12058, 5 pages, presented at 12th Management Committee and Scientific Meeting, Dublin, Ireland, 28-30 Jan. 2015
• David Löschenbrand:
  Antenna characterization in the near – field
  Master Thesis, Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology, TU Wien, 2016
• Gregor Lasser, David Löschenbrand, Christoph F. Mecklenbräuker:
  Update on Distorted Measured Antenna Patterns
  COST Action IC 1004, TD(14)10033, 10th Management Committee Meeting and Scientific Meeting, 8 pages, Aalborg, Denmark; 26-28 May 2014
• Gregor Lasser, David Löschenbrand, Christoph F. Mecklenbräuker:
  Near Field Scans of Tyre mounted Dipoles using a separate Phase Reference Antenna
  in Proc. IEEE Conference on Antennas and Propagation in Wireless Communications (APWC), 4 pages, Palm Beach, Aruba, 3-8 Aug. 2014, ISBN: 978-1-4673-5690-9

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Contact: Christoph F. MECKLENBRÄUKER, Univ.Prof. Ing. Dipl.-Ing. Dr.-Ing.