3-D radiation pattern from antenna measurement

Hi,

Are there any functions that I can use to plot 3-d radiation pattern with data (azimuth,elevation and amplitude) in Matlab?

Thank you

Answer 1

[Abhipsa]

MATLAB File Exchange submission offers the "polarplot3d" function, which allows you to create 3D radiation patterns using polar plots: https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/13200-3d-polar-plot. Alternatively, you can create a custom plot by using built-in functions like "meshgrid" and "surf."

Here is an example of how you can do this in MATLAB R2024b using “surf” and “meshgrid”:

% Sample data
azimuth = linspace(0, 2*pi, 360); % Azimuth angles in radians
elevation = linspace(-pi/2, pi/2, 180); % Elevation angles in radians
[Az, El] = meshgrid(azimuth, elevation);

% Sample amplitude data (replace with your actual data)
amplitude = abs(sin(El) .* cos(Az));

% Convert spherical to Cartesian coordinates
[X, Y, Z] = sph2cart(Az, El, amplitude);

% Plot the 3D radiation pattern
figure;
surf(X, Y, Z, amplitude, 'EdgeColor', 'none');
colormap(jet);
colorbar;
xlabel('X');
ylabel('Y');
zlabel('Z');
title('3D Radiation Pattern');
axis equal;
view(3);

The output for the above code:

You can refer to the below MATLAB documentations for more details:

• sph2cart: https://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/ref/sph2cart.html
• meshgrid: https://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/ref/meshgrid.html
• surf: https://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/ref/surf.html

To access documentation pages for the release that you are using, you can use the "doc" command in MATLAB command window (https://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/ref/doc.html).

I hope this helps!