Abstract
With the massive growth in wireless systems and the internet of things
vision, low-cost and rapid antenna measurements in echoic lab
environments have attracted significant research, commercial, and
educational interest in the last decade. In this paper, we present a
low-cost antenna positioning system based on open-source positioning
hardware, for in-situ 3-dimensional radiation pattern measurements. The
positioner is an off-the-shelf Arduino robotic arm and can perform
azimuth and elevation measurements over a hemisphere using different
rotation mechanisms. The positioning system is used in conjunction with
a commercial Vector Network Analyzer (VNA) and wire λ/2 antennas for the
second VNA port. The measured radiation patterns of a flexible
microstrip patch antenna using the proposed setup are compared to 3D
full-wave simulations as well as anechoic chamber measurements. The
measurement setup, excluding the VNA, costs less than $300, and does
not require calibrated reference antennas, rotary connectors, or
specific PC peripherals. The open-source design library is publicly
available at git.soton.ac.uk/mahm1m19/antennameasurement_system/.