Antenna Far-Field Measurement System based on Software Defined Radio and UAV

The measurements in the microwave chamber or outfield are the two general ways to obtain the characteristics of antennas. The cost of building a microwave chamber or an outfield construction is extremely high. This article proposes a software-defined radio (SDR) based unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) system for antenna far-field measurement, aiming to provide a cost-effective and flexible solution for measuring antenna characteristics in real-world scenarios. This system includes both an airborne terminal and a ground station. The airborne terminal is responsible for data acquisition of antenna radiation patterns. According to the principle of antenna farfield measurement, the trajectory of the UAV is arranged according to the E-plane and H-plane of the antenna under test, and the antenna radiation patterns are depicted from the data of each trajectory point. The function of the ground station is processing data, sending UAV control commands, and controlling the signal source. In this article, antenna measurement experiments are performed in the microwave chamber and in the outfield respectively. After analyzing the results of the test experiments, it is found that the two test results remain consistent, but there is also a certain gap.