Comparison between Measured and Simulated Antenna Patterns for a LOFAR LBA array

A UAV-based system has been employed for a measurement campaign on a station of the radio telescope LOFAR to characterize the individual Low Band Antenna patterns. The experimental set-up has been then simulated with a full-wave software and numerical embedded element patterns have been compared to the measured results. A statistical analysis of the differences between the two data sets has been finally carried out to estimate the accuracy of the electromagnetic model.