Treffer: A Guide to Performing Automatic 2D Near-Field Planar Measurements Using an Outdated Robotic Arm.

Near-field (NF) measurements are commonly used to predict the far-field (FF) of an antenna through NF to FF conversion. Conventional automated setup measurements use linear robotic systems that occupy a large space and are limited to scan multiple planes and co- and cross-polar in a sequence. Modern systems use a robotic arm to overcome this issue, but it is very expensive. This work explains how to perform 2D NF measurements using an outdated robotic arm controlled by Python and Arduino. This low-cost system was validated through horn lens measurements from X- to Ka -band. The maximum difference in beam waist between theoretical and measured was ~3.17 mm for the X-band horn lens antenna due to the focal distance difference of ~11.11 mm. The source of errors and limitations is discussed here. The measured data along with the Python code to generate 2D color maps are available on GitHub. Although it involves more complexity and additional steps compared to commercial systems, this budget system provided good agreement with the theoretical values of the horn lens antennas, becoming a viable alternative to perform raster NF measurements over a three-dimensional volume. Further works may include implementations of cylindrical or spherical measurements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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