Critical Upgrade of Antenna Measurement System

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Wireless antennas must fit in the crammed environment of portable devices, and so can be difficult to design. This difficulty will increase in future wireless systems because the antennas used will need to be electronically reconfigurable, more than one antenna will need to be located on a device, and they will have to offer more than the traditional antenna performance characteristics. New antenna configurations, design methods, and testing methods are needed. These we are already in the process of developing. However, theoretical work alone is not sufficient. Experimental implementation is vital to confirm everything. But as antenna performance complexity increases the measurements needed become more elaborate. In order to be able to do these we need to upgrade our existing antenna test facility to a so-called spherical near-field system. It will be used for diagnostic and performance testing of the next-generation wireless antennas we are busy researching. Fortunately we will be able to use all of our existing equipment. We need obtain only some additional pieces of equipment to arrive at a fully-functional spherical near-field system that applies to antennas used in a wide variety of applications, and which will be a key research tool in the future.