Radiation Pattern Measurement for Earth Station Antenna Based on UAV

Antenna pattern is an important performance parameter of antennas, which reflects the basic performance indexes and working condition. Antenna pattern measurement with high precision can be implemented by the anechoic chamber, but the environment of the anechoic chamber is not suitable for the large size ground station antenna. Given the impact of surrounding environment, it is necessary to measure the fixed antenna in open field. Since the antenna is fixed, the traditional on-site measurement schemes do not have high precision. As for the fixed ground station antenna, a solution is proposed to realize the high precision measurement by Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV). UAV can flies along the orbit flexibly and conveniently to measure patterns in any plane. In order to reduce the influence of the positioning accuracy and flight leeway, the following improvements are implemented: (1) while the UAV flies, Real Time Kinematic (RTK) positioning based on Time Difference Of Arrival (TDOA) is applied to realize precise positioning; (2) Curve fitting method is used to decrease the angle deviation brought by flight leeway. The proposed method is verified by simulation. The simulation results show that the amplitude error, caused by positioning error and flight leeway, is reduced to 0.21 dB. The pointing angle deviation is 0.1 degrees.