Phase Centre Determination on the Basis of Far-Field Measurements

Kurzfassung

Rapid development of GNSS applications is accompanied by the growth in demand for high-precision positioning (cm/mm-accuracy). In order to achieve such accuracy, one must thoroughly consider all system-induced biases [3], including antenna induced variations of the phase centre. The phase centre (PC) represents an effective point of radiation, that is the point to which carrier and group delays induced by the antenna are referenced to. Therefore, the variations of the PC directly affect the positioning solution of a GNSS receiver. This paper investigates the phase centre variations (PCVs) of a single antenna element as well as of a 2x2 array of such elements designed for GNSS reception. The assessment is based on simulated and measured far-field carrier phase patterns of the aforementioned antennas.