Antenna Characterization with Autonomous UAV and Software Defined Radio

A measurement equipment with the purpose of measuring the radiation pattern of antennas in the frequency interval 30-300 MHz was constructed. To perform the necessary measurements the equipment needs to be mounted on a UAV, a necessity that demands a low weight from the measurement equipment. These kinds of measurements are today done with equipment that is mounted on helicopters, making the equipment smaller and fitting it on an UAV will save cost for the persons or companies that need to utilize this service. To ensure that the system is easy to use for anyone who wants to characterize an antenna efforts were made to make the software application user friendly. The system visualizes measurement results in 2D diagrams that are simple to analyze. Since the equipment has size restrictions the computer in the system needs to be small and light. The single board computer used has computational limitations and therefore the digital signal processing must be carefully designed to both be fast and generate good measurement data. To verify the performance of the system tests and theoretical simulations where performed and compared. The tests were performed both in an echo free antenna chamber and in realistic outdoor environments with an UAV. The finished system performed well and the measurement results showed clear similarities with the theoretical simulations. The outdoor environment clearly influences the shape of an antennas radiation pattern and the need to characterize antennas in a realistic environment became clear