A reference plane method for antenna-radome analysis

The effect of the radome on the radiation pattern of the enclosed antenna is an important system design parameter. Its prediction requires repeated calculation for different configurations and has to be efficient as well as accurate. The radome analysis method presented here uses physical optics for tracing the field from the antenna aperture through the radome wall to an external reference plane, where contributions from the antenna are collected, and an FFT procedure is applied for the far field transformation. Accuracy check may be applied simply by changing the reference plane distance. Results match well with measurements.