Broadband test-source for antenna measurements with unmanned aerial vehicles

In the last years, an innovative system to measure the radiation pattern of VHF and UHF antennas for radio astronomy has been presented. The system exploits a small Unmanned Aerial Vehicle as a radio frequency test-source to characterize receiving antennas and arrays on the ground. In this work, a broadband (50 MHz - 650 MHz) test-source antenna has been designed in order to both improve the measurement accuracy at the lowest operating frequencies and enable multi-frequency measurements.