DEVELOPMENT OF HIGHLY ACCURATE MEASUREMENT TECHNIQUES FOR STATE-OF-THE-ART ANTENNA TEST FACILITIES

摘要

Contoured multi-beams achieved by multi-feed reflector antennas, realized in modern communication satellites, like Intelsat Ⅷand Ⅸ generations satellite, require an economic measurement of their antenna characteristic. Further, highly accurate, but also fast and therefore real-time measurements are assumed to be applied for the testing of the antenna performance. For that aim, the Compensated Compact Range CCR 75/60, applied at e.g. Space Systems Loral (SSL) in Palo Alto (USA), at ALCATEL in Cannes (France), at the MISTRAL facility in Toulouse (France) and at Astrium GmbH (Germany) was developed and installed by Astrium GmbH. In order to optimize the measurement accuracy of the CCR, detailed error analyses and investigations for improvement measures were performed. Within this paper, the accuracy analyses and improvement steps will be presented in order to establish accuracy values, which can be realized in state-of-the-art compact range test facilities.