Measurement Guideline of Fresnel‐Field Antenna Measurement Method

In this letter, a parametric analysis of the Fresnel‐field antenna measurement method is performed for a square aperture. As a result, the optimum number of Fresnel fields for one far‐field point is guided as M_opt=N_opt=D²/λR+5, where D is the antenna diameter, λ is the wavelength, and R is the distance between the source antenna and the antenna under test. For the aperture size 5 ≤ L_x/λ ≤ 20, the tolerable distances for gain errors of 0.5 dB and 0.2 dB can be guided as R_{0.5 dB} ≈ 1.2L_x/λ and R_{0.2 dB} ≈ 2.0L_x/λ, where L_x is the lateral length of the square aperture. The tolerable distances for 20 ≤ L_x/λ ≤ 200 are also proposed. This measurement guideline can be fully utilized when performing the Fresnel‐field antenna measurement method.