NUMERICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL VALIDATION OF A PHASELESS PLANAR NEAR-FIELD TECHNIQUE

An algorithm for the determination of the radiation pattern of a radia ting source from phaseless measurements over two planes is developed i n detail. A rather extensive assessment of its performances with respe ct to positioning errors and noise uncertainties is included. Moreover , comparisons with experimental data for a low sidelobe antenna demons trate the wide applicability of the proposed technique, which is now m ature for use both at frequencies where phase information cannot be re liably detected and at lower frequencies. The full exploitation of thi s new concept in near field techniques will allow a drastic reduction of the cost of the whole facility, since many specification parameters can be relaxed without affecting the precision of the measurement set -up.