Near-field antenna measurement in under 10 seconds.

Conventional near-field systems scan point by point. Our method captures the entire measurement plane at once.

Front of the Wisconsin measurement head above a clean four-patch antenna

Final thermal measurement frame held between captures — EX and EY electric field magnitude 1 mm above the antenna.

Results

Antenna defects change the measured near-field pattern.

The prototype measures a clean antenna, an antenna with a feed defect, and an antenna with a patch defect. The ΔT maps show how each defect changes the measured near-field pattern.

Clean

ex measurement

ey measurement

Feed defect

ex measurement

ey measurement

Patch defect

ex measurement

ey measurement

Thermal measurement

The feed defect appears in the thermal pattern.

The system records the full near-field plane for both EX and EY polarizations, showing how the inset feed changes the measured field pattern.

RECT+ 0.0s

EX polarization

The problem

With a scanning probe,resolution costs time.

A conventional 2D E-field scanner records magnitude at one coordinate, then moves to the next. More area or finer sampling means more probe positions and a longer test.

1 point

measured at a time

1,000s

of positions per 2D plane

Minutes–days

as resolution increases

Point-by-point scan0% mapped

The method

Capture the entireplane in parallel.

Our E-field-to-heat transducer absorbs a fraction of the incident RF energy and converts it into a spatial temperature pattern. Stronger local fields produce more heating, allowing a thermal camera to reveal the field-intensity distribution.

262,144

spatial sampling points

Under 10 s

acquisition time

Full-plane captureAll points · at once

IMS 2026 prototype

Antenna diagnostics platform.

Built for the IEEE International MTT Symposia in Boston, this prototype cycles three arrays: a clean reference, a feed defect, and a patch defect through the same test sequence.

Feed defect

One patch feed is inset farther than the others.

This geometric variation serves as an example of a manufacturing defect.

Positioning for measurement

The sensor lowers.

Once the antenna is positioned, the measurement head lowers to a fixed standoff for repeatable full-plane captures.

Demo Game from IMS 2026

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OndaMetric — Demo Game

Match each antenna to its thermal image

Score: -

Antenna images

Antenna 1

Drop antenna image into this column

Antenna 2

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Antenna 3

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Contact

Interested in faster near-field measurement?

Get in touch to discuss the prototype, measurement data, or applications for thermal antenna diagnostics.

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