Emulation of gain measurements of standard gain pyramidal horns using 3D EM solver

Pyramidal horn antennas are mostly used as “known gain” antennas in measurements of antennas with gain to be determined. Manufacturers of antennas, institutions for standardization and measurement laboratories offer tabulated data for antenna gain to be used in measurements with defined accuracy (typically 0.5 dB, 0.25 dB). There has been continuous effort to achieve a better accuracy in measuring antenna gain. The ultimate goal is to have accuracy of 0.1 dB for SGH. In this paper two most commonly measurement techniques are efficiently emulated using commercial full wave EM solver in order to explore possible causes for measurement errors. It was shown that, when ideally applied, these two measurement techniques give almost exactly the same results for gain as direct full wave solution.