Evaluating the performance of the Ft. Huachuca compact range

Summary form only given. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) presents a plan for evaluating and verifying the performance of the refurbished Ft. Huachuca compact antenna test range, hereafter referred to as the Range. This plan was based upon information supplied to NIST on the anticipated applications. Information included required measurement accuracies for gain, main- and crosspolarization pattern, RMS sidelobe level, and beam steering. Each of these accuracy requirements affects various aspects of the Range. For example, a requirement for accurate measurements of low-level sidelobes limits the tolerance to multipath errors.In order to verify the performance of the Range, measurement comparisons with another measurement facility are necessary. We cannot reasonably discuss how well the two facilities agree without having uncertainty analyses for both. An uncertainty analysis is an integral part of any measurement and is crucial to determining whether the Range is performing up to specification. We evaluate individual error sources and combine the corresponding component uncertainties to produce an overall estimate of uncertainty. In the table, we indicate the uncertainty sources for the test-antenna gain measurements. Similarly, uncertainty sources must be established for other measurements (e.g., measurements of sidelobes and polarization). We will discuss the nature of each of the sources below and methods of evaluating the uncertainties.