Thermal testing of antennas in spherical near field multi-probe system

Temperature change cause thermal expansion of the antenna materials and will have an important impact on antenna performances. In some applications it is sufficient to calculate the antenna deformation due to temperature by mechanical analysis and determine the RF impact by EM analysis tools. However, if the environmental conditions of the final antenna are stringent and considered critical like in military and civil applications like space and aeronautics the thermal performance of the antenna must be determined by experiment. Typical temperature testing ranges are between -50°C and +80°C but can also be even more extensive. This paper present a simple and easy method for thermal testing of antennas in a spherical near field range based on multi probe technology. The antenna is maintained inside a RF transparent thermally insulated container including the local heating and cooling equipment. The fast testing provided by the multiprobe system allow to measure the temperature dependence of the antenna at several different temperatures within the investigation range. The method will be illustrated for the cold measurement case but the extension to the full cold-hot temperature range is trivial.