Full-Sphere Radiation Pattern Characterization of IoT Devices via Pattern Stitching

A full-sphere characterization method based on stitching multiple truncated radiation patterns together has been proposed recently. The method considers classical antenna measurements where both the probe antenna and the antenna under test (AUT) are connected to ports of a vector network analyzer (VNA) via coaxial cables. Such measurements are not always possible, for example, when characterizing radiation patterns of Internet of Things (IoT) devices where the antenna is integrated onto the printed circuit board (PCB) and has no coaxial connector attached. This paper presents the measurement procedure and the required adaptations to the aforementioned method for characterization of such devices. An extensive error analysis is carried out on the obtained results to investigate the performance of the method and identify its limits.