Multichannel absorberless near field measurement system

1. A near field microwave scanning system comprising:

(a) a switched array of antenna elements forming an array surface;

(b) a scan surface, wherein the scan surface is substantially parallel to the array surface and separated by a distance less than about 1 wavelength of the measured frequency;

(c) a processing engine operatively connected to the switched antenna array for obtaining and processing near field data, said processing engine comprising:

i. a controller,

ii. a channel selector and sampler,

iii. a channel corrector,

iv. a data translator and interpolator,

v. an amplitude and phase detector,

vi. a near field corrector,

vii. a transformer for transforming the near field data to far field data, and

viii. a user interface.

2. The system of claim 1 wherein the scanning system operates without an absorber.

3. The system of claim 1 wherein the antenna elements are comprised in a multi-layer structure, and the antenna are isolated by means of feed vias through the multi-layer structure.

4. The system of claim 1 wherein the distance between the scan surface and the array surface (D) is between about 1/17 th to about ⅙ th of wavelength.

5. The system of claim 1 wherein the inter element distance (d) range of the array is between about 1/34 th to about 1/12 th of the wavelength.

6. The system of claim 4 or 5 wherein D/d is about 2.0.

7. A method of measuring and calibrating EIRP/ERP or Tx/Rx performance of RF and microwave transceivers, said method comprising the steps of:

(a) using a switched array of antenna elements forming an array surface;

(b) using a scan surface, wherein the scan surface is substantially parallel to the array surface and separated by a distance less than about 1 wavelength of the measured frequency;

(c) receiving output from each antenna;

(d) correcting the near field data;

(e) transforming the near field data to far field data; and

(f) without the use of an absorber.