Two-Dimensional Far-Field Mathematical Absorber Reflection Suppression

Authors: S.F. Gregson, G.E. Masters, A.C. Newell, G.E. Hindman
Publication: The Loughborough Antennas and Propagation Conference, 2014
Copyright Owner: IET

During recent years, far-field mathematical absorber reflection suppression (FF-MARS) has become a widely adopted and accepted technique for suppressing spurious range reflections within far-field and compact antenna test ranges (CATR) [1, 2, 3, 4]. Far-field measurements are particularly prone to the effects of range-reflections [5] which, when combined with the increase in signal to noise ratio that MARS often provides, makes this form of post-processing particularly beneficial to these applications [6]. FF-MARS processing is rigorous with its theoretical basis being resolutely founded within standard cylindrical near-field theory [6, 7]. FF-MARS offers the unique, and particularly pertinent for far-field applications, attributes of being able to process one-dimensional, singularly polarised, mono-chromatic, frequency-domain, far-field data without approximation or loss of generality. Hitherto, for cases where two-dimensional far-field data needed processing, recourse to standard spherical-MARS (S-MARS) was unavoidable [8, 9]. However, there are occasions when complex spherical mode based post-processing is unavailable, undesirable, or even inappropriate (such as when only a small portion of the far-field sphere is acquired, or when only a single polarisation component is available) and under these circumstances the ability to process two-dimensional data with this new FF-MARS technique can become highly desirable. For the first time, this paper shows how the existing one-dimensional FF-MARS technique can be extended to enable two-dimensional data to be processed with the success of the measurement and post-processing technique being illustrated with results obtained from actual range measurements.

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