In this paper we describe an enhanced three-antennagain extrapolation technique that allows one to determine antennagain with significantly fewer data points and at closerdistances than with the well-established traditional three-antennagain extrapolation technique that has been in use for overfive decades. As opposed to the traditional gain extrapolationtechnique, where high-order scattering is purposely ignored soas to isolate only the direct antenna-to-antenna coupling, we showthat by incorporating third-order scattering the enhanced gainextrapolation technique can be obtained. The theoretical foundationusing third-order scattering is developed and experimentalresults are presented comparing the enhanced technique andtraditional technique for two sets of internationally recognizedNIST reference standard gain horn antennas at X-band and Ku-band.We show that with the enhanced technique gain values forthese antennas are readily obtained to within stated uncertaintiesof ±0.07 dB using as few as 10 data points per antenna pair,as opposed to approximately 4000 -to- 8000 data points per antenna pairthat is needed with the traditional technique. Furthermore, withthe described enhanced technique, antenna-to-antenna distancescan be reduced by a factor of three, and up a factor of six insome cases, compared to the traditional technique, a significantreduction in the overall size requirement of facilities used toperform gain extrapolation measurements.
Organization: National Institute of Standards and Technology
Last updated: 2024-05-15T10:39:49.877574
Tags: antenna, antenna-gain, gain, gain-extrapolation, sparse-measurements