QMUL Antenna Measurement Laboratory

AML provides extensive antenna test and measurement facilities from 400MHz to 500GHz and time domain spectrometry from 500GHz to 3THz. AML houses 5 anechoic chambers: (i) 8-350GHz compact range facility (with class 10,000 clean room capability for space-flight hardware) which was recently (2017) upgraded which enabled the provision of a new spherical near-field test facility within the Compact Antenna Test Range (CATR) chamber offering a maximum test antenna size of 2m from 8-40 GHz; (ii) A (6x5x3) m3 fully-screened chamber offering antenna testing from 400MHz to 8GHz with dedicated Anritsu Vector Network Analyser (VNA), and turntable suitable for on-body testing; (iii) A general purpose (3x3x9)m3 chamber which is used for far-field feed measurements, planar near-field measurements with NSI (0.9x0.9)m2 scanner, NRL reflectivity arch measurements; (iv) In-house designed and built anechoic chamber for Free-Space microwave electromagnetic (EM) material characterisation facility provides S-parameter measurements of antenna radomes, frequency selective surfaces (FSS) and metamaterial device characterisation and determination of complex EM material properties including graded dielectric materials; (v) the new EPSRC TERRA facility consisting of an NSI-700-S360 spherical near-field or far-field antenna measurement system, currently operating from 26GHz to 325GHz. Unique to this system is the capability to mount a test antenna on a stationary mm-wave probe station while completing a full 4pi steradian closed spherical surface measurement of on-chip antennas.  Key instrumentation includes: Keysight PNA-X and associated millimetrewave heads covering 10MHz to 40GHz, 50-75GHz, 75-110GHz, 110-170GHz, 220-325GHz; Rohde & Schwarz ZNA covering 10MHz to 40GHz and 325-500GHz; Cascade Microtech on-wafer probe system that currently can be used up to 110 GHz with dedicated waveguide probes together with the Keysight PNA-X; Keysight PNA-L VNA N5230C (0.01-20)GHz; 50-325GHz Quasi-optical test bench; THz Time Domain Spectrometry (TDS) system providing THz spectroscopy between 0.1-4THz of biological and non-biological materials; Keysight N1500A Materials Measurement Suite which automates complex permittivity and permeability measurements; Rohde & Schwarz ZNBT 24 channel VNA (9kHz to 8.5GHz); Rohde & Schwarz FSP Spectrum Analyser (9kHz to 40GHz) with Noise Figure measurement option installed and R&S Harmonic mixers: 75-110GHz and 220-325GHz. The group has extensive 3D printing facilities for antenna manufacture with a range of 3D printers including the high precision, EPSRC TERRA funded, Nanoscribe 3D laser lithography system with resolution down to 200nm.