Plane-Wave Synthesis: A Sparse Representation Perspective

Using plane-wave generator (PWG), an array consisting of a number of radiating sources, to emulate incoming signals from the far-field zone across the aperture of the antenna-under-test (AUT) is an alternative solution for antenna testing, especially for electrically large AUTs. The locations and weights of PWG elements need to be carefully designed to satisfy the required accuracy of the far-field distribution. Conventionally, the theory of nonredundant sampling representation was exploited to determine the geometry of the PWG. In this letter, we revisit this problem from the perspective of sparse representation and propose a novel method based on the orthogonal matching pursuit algorithm to derive the geometrical features of the PWG. Numerical results confirm the superiority of the proposed method over the conventional one. Furthermore, a penalty-based convex optimization framework is proposed to suppress radiation energy in the outer zone around the AUT aperture.