Antenna gain and scattering measurement using reflective three-antenna method

A novel method is proposed to combine the concepts of three-antenna method and RCS measurement method to measure the antenna gain and its structural scattering characteristics without involving the reference antenna or polarimetric calibration. In this method, the measurement arrangement including the transmitting and receiving antennas is considered as a two-port network with reference planes at the input port for each antenna as shown. By connecting three different known terminators at the receiving antenna port and measuring the reflection coefficients at the transmitting antenna port, the scattering parameters of this two-port network can be derived. They are shown to be related to the product of two antennas´ gain. Therefore one can follow the three-antenna method to find the gain of each antenna. In addition, the structural scattering characteristics of each antenna can be solved.