Accuracy Characteristics of Radio Monitoring Antennas

Abstract

Context. The constant increase in the number of radio electronic equipment leads to an ever-increasing complication of the electromagnetic environment. That requires constant monitoring to ensure electromagnetic compatibility, as well as the development of high-quality universal antennas for radio monitoring systems. Objective. The goal of the work is construction of a mathematical model of an antenna system for radio monitoring stations and calculation of its main accuracy characteristics. Method. The most important metrological characteristics of a measuring instrument are methodical and instrumental errors, that is, the dependence of these errors on the parameters of structural elements of the signal processing device, which is integrated with the antenna array. Consequently, the mathematical model of the antenna system should take into account not idealized, but real transmission coefficients of the most critical structural components. Besides, to ensure transparent functional relations between the voltages in the mathematical model is necessary to limit the number of variables informative voltages. With this approach, the determination of instrumental errors is greatly simplified, and analytical expressions become more suitable for assessing the influence of structural elements on the accuracy of measuring processes. Results. Analytical relations were obtained that reveal the influence of different elements and circuits of the device on the measurement accuracy of the radiation fields parameters. Conclusions. The present findings confirm that the presented antenna system provides a measurement of the main parameters of the radiation field both in the conditions of a satisfactory electromagnetic environment. Moreover, in the conditions when another frequency of radiation acts at the frequency of the useful signal. The angular resolution, that is, the ability to separate signals with an insignificant angular spacing of signal sources and interference, depends not only on the directivity characteristics of the antenna array but also on the accuracy of establishing the distances between the phase centres of real and virtual vibrators. The operating frequency range of the antenna array is limited not only by the deformation of the radiation pattern as well by the errors in the design of the antenna structural elements.

Prospect for Using Low-Element Adaptive Antenna Systems for Radio Monitoring Stations

“…More complex structural diagrams of antenna systems with extended functionality for radio monitoring stations, as well as analysis of errors in measuring field parameters by these systems, are considered in the works [68][69][70][71].…”