Measuring the radiation pattern
Radioelectric measurements on antennas

Determining the radiation pattern of an antenna involves studying the distribution of the electromagnetic field in a sphere centered on the antenna.

To characterize this diagram, we usually use site and bearing coordinates (defined on figure 1) and measure either the electric field in amplitude and phase, or more generally amplitude alone or power expressed in decibels (figure 1).

Measurements are generally taken in the main planes, such as Oy, Oz (site plane) and Oy, Ox (bearing plane). In some cases, measurements are taken over the entire sphere, with a sampling step that is small compared to the variations in the diagram.