Low resolution radiation pattern sampling for a thin dipole

During antenna measurements the field pattern is typically sampled in discrete radiation directions and this inevitably affects the accuracy of the results. This paper considers the problem of sampling accuracy by taking an analytical solution for a thin dipole and numerically sampling using two different methods. The first assumes that the antenna is rotated in equal angle steps, the second uses a point set generated from a sphere partitioning algorithm. It is shown that the errors produced by the latter method are on average lower than the former. It is also inferred that the sphere-partitioning sampling method exhibits lower sensitivity to alignment of the antenna relative to the measurement system coordinate system.