A data restoration method for spherical near-field antenna measurements based on inverse distance weighting interpolation

Abstract In the process of spherical near-field measurements for antennas, incomplete near-field data acquisition due to obstructions in certain regions can significantly affect the accuracy of the antenna radiation pattern test results. To address the far-field pattern errors caused by missing data, an inverse distance weighting interpolation method is proposed to restore the missing near-field data before performing the near-to-far-field transformation, thereby reducing the impact of missing data on the far-field results. The far-field radiation pattern after data restoration shows a significant improvement compared to before restoration, with average error reductions of 2.6707 dB in the E-plane and 1.5108 dB in the H-plane. Additionally, the obtained far-field radiation pattern closely matches the simulated pattern, indicating that this method is effective in restoring missing near-field data.