Near-Field Radio Holography of Large Reflector Antennas

Abstract

We summarise the mathematical foundation of the holographic method of measuring the reflector profile of an antenna or radio telescope. In particular, we treat the case, where the signal source is located at a finite distance from the antenna under test, necessitating the inclusion of the so-called Fresnel field terms in the radiation integrals. We assume a ``full phase'' system with reference receiver to provide the reference phase. We describe in some detail the hardware and software implementation of the system used for the holographic measurement of the 12m ALMA prototype submillimeter antennas. We include a description of the practicalities of a measurement and surface setting. The results for both the VertexRSI and AEC (Alcatel-EIE-Consortium) prototype ALMA antennas are presented.Comment: 14 pages, 14 figures, to appear in IEEE Antennas and Propagation Magazine, Vol. 49, No. 5, October 2007. Version 2 includes nice mug-shots of the author