Low-cost near field pattern measurement technique for aperture array characterization

This paper describes a low-cost innovative technique to characterize aperture arrays based on a near field pattern measurement. This measurement is used to validate a numerical method code, based on the method of moments, capable of realizing accurate electromagnetic simulations of very large non-regular arrays containing up to thousands of elements which are tens of wavelengths in diameter. A practical application of the technique and the code can be found for low frequency aperture arrays in radio astronomy applications, such as the SKA telescope.