Far-field reconstruction from near-field data acquired via a fast spherical spiral scan: experimental evidences

A probe-compensated near-field - far-field (NF-FF) transformation with spherical spiral scanning, which makes possible to lower the number of needed measurements, as well as the time required for the data acquisition when characterizing quasi-planar antennas, is experimentally verified in this paper. Such a technique, based on the nonredundant representation of electromagnetic fields, has been achieved by properly applying the unified theory of spiral scans for nonspherical antennas and adopting a very flexible source modelling, formed by two circular "bowls" with the same aperture diameter but different bending radii. A two-dimensional optimal sampling interpolation formula allows one to reconstruct the NF data at any point on the measurement sphere and, in particular, at those required by the classical NF-FF transformation with spherical scanning. The reported NF and FF reconstructions, obtained from the nonredundant samples acquired on the spiral, assess the accuracy of the proposed technique.