For electrically large antenna systems, far-field (FF) range size limitations, transportation, and mounting problems make it difficult or absolutely impractical to measure the radiation patterns on a conventional FF range. On the other hand, the growing of high-perform-ance antennas, as those employed in radar and satellite systems, requires an accurate and complete measure of their radiating characteristics. As a consequence, the problem of the determination of the FF pattern of an antenna from near-field (NF) measurements has attracted considerable attention in the last fifty years.

Indeed, NF scanning techniques are the better choice when complete pattern and polarization measurements are required. They allow one to determine the radiating field at the surface of the antenna, and such information can be properly used for the diagnostics. At last, the NF measurements may be performed in a controlled environment, as an indoor shielded anechoic chamber, thus overcoming those drawbacks which cannot be eliminated in FF measurements.

This special issue provides an international forum for the researchers working in the antenna measurement field to disseminate new ideas and recent advances on NF methods in characterization techniques, simulations, and applications. Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

• Advances in NF-FF transformation techniques
• Innovative NF measurement techniques
• Measurement standards
• Electromagnetic algorithms and data processing
• Microwave holography
• Phased arrays testing
• Measurement uncertainty analysis
• Phase retrieval methods
• Probe position correction
• Specialized antenna NF measurements
• Mitigation of the error due to the measurement area truncation
• Time-domain NF measurements
• NF probe design and characterization

Before submission authors should carefully read over the journal's Author Guidelines, which are located at http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijap/guidelines/. Prospective authors should submit an electronic copy of their complete manuscript through the journal Manuscript Tracking System at http://mts.hindawi.com/ according to the following timetable: