The purpose of this poster is to present the progress in developing a planar near-field system for characterizing the radiation properties of high directives antennas. Near-field measurements enable performance evaluation of large antennas at greatly reduced distances. A recently completed, planar near-field system with a 1 m x 1 m scan area. The work that is being conducted is the creation of a window application to create an automated system for said planar near-field system. The application is capable of controlling the scanner and acquisition instruments, storing data, and reusing previously stored near-field data as well as having the necessary controls for accurate prediction of the far field radiation. The methodology for this investigation consists of 1) building a 4-axis positioner system using parts from Velmex inc., 2) creating an automated program to control the positioner system. 3) Adding adsorber materials to the scanner system walls to reduce reflections and improve data quality, 4) Measuring the near-field characteristic of an AUT using a waveguide probe mounted on the 4-axis scanner.

Measurements made will be acquired by a 67 GHz Vector Network Analyzer controlled via Local Network, 5) Generating the far-field radiation pattern and extracting the antenna parameters from measured data using near-field to far-field transformation algorithms. A windows program is being developed in C with different window processes for the creation of the GUI for the system. Different tabs are created for ease of use for the different options. The expected outcome for this GUI being the creation of a processed signal with the collected information that is latter to be used in the creation of a plot chart, with the purpose of studying the electrical field generated by the radiation of the pair of antennas being used.