Numerical Analysis of Mask-Based Phase Reconstruction in Phaseless Spherical Near-Field Antenna Measurements

Sensors, vol. 25, pp. 5637

Abstract

Phase-retrieval problems are employed to tackle the challenge of recovering a complex signal from amplitude-only data. In phaseless spherical near-field antenna measurements, the task is to recover the complex coefficients describing the radiation behavior of the antenna under test (AUT) from amplitude near-field measurements. The coefficients refer, for example, to equivalent currents or spherical modes, and from these, the AUT's far-field characteristic, which is usually of interest, can be obtained. In this article, the concept of a mask-based phase recovery is applied to spherical near-field antenna measurements. First, the theory of the mask approach is described with its mathematical definition. Then, several mask types based on random distributions, ϕ-rotations, or probes are introduced and discussed. Finally, the performances of the different masks are evaluated based on simulations with multiple AUTs and with Wirtinger flow as a phase-retrieval algorithm. The simulation results show that the mask approach can improve the reconstruction error depending on the number of masks, oversampling, and the type of mask.

Authors 4

1. Adrien A. Guth Aachen Institute of High Frequency Technology

   RWTH Aachen University

   Affiliation as printed

   Institute of High Frequency Technology, RWTH Aachen University, 52074 Aachen, Germany

2. Sakirudeen A. Abdulsalaam

   Munich Center for Machine Learning · Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München

   Affiliation as printed

   Department of Mathematics, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, 80333 München, Germany

   Munich Center for Machine Learning, 80539 München, Germany

3. Holger Rauhut

   Munich Center for Machine Learning · Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München

   Affiliation as printed

   Department of Mathematics, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, 80333 München, Germany

   Munich Center for Machine Learning, 80539 München, Germany

4. Dirk Heberling corresponding Aachen Institute of High Frequency Technology

   Fraunhofer Institute for High Frequency Physics and Radar Techniques · RWTH Aachen University

   Affiliation as printed

   Fraunhofer Institute for High Frequency Physics and Radar Techniques, 53343 Wachtberg, Germany

   Institute of High Frequency Technology, RWTH Aachen University, 52074 Aachen, Germany