EMI antenna calibration on an absorber-lined ground plane to determine free-space antenna factor

Theoretical and experimental investigations are carried out on the establishment of a quasi-free-space environment for electromagnetic interference antenna calibration using ferrite-tile absorbers at the test site. Numerical techniques are developed to evaluate the accuracy of the free-space antenna factor obtained on the absorbers when the ferrite-tile material constants are known. In addition, the antenna impedance measurement on a tuned dipole antenna is proposed for evaluating the calibration error caused by the unwanted ground reflection. Experiments confirm the validity of the numerical techniques and demonstrate that commercially available ferrite tiles can drastically reduce ground reflection even in a lower very-high-frequency (VHF) range. It is concluded that the standard antenna method can yield free-space values of the antenna factor for the entire VHF region with an error of less than 0.3 dB, if ferrite tiles are placed on a metal ground plane greater than 8.7×8.7 m² and if the antenna under calibration is positioned at a height of about 3 m.