Antennas for Railway Applications: Comparison between Scaled Mock-up and Real Locomotive Measurements

This paper presents and compares real locomotive and scaled mock-up antenna measurements to investigate the reliability of scaled model measurements and to evaluate the impact of the locomotive chassis on the performance of the installed antennas. Three different operational frequencies and two distinct mounting positions at the center and front of the locomotives were selected for comparison. Fair comparability between patterns is observed with a similarity factor above 64%. The deviations between patterns arise from different geometries and installed superstructures. However, the results reveal coherent findings, particularly the significant impact of locomotive chassis, roof geometries, and superstructures on the radiation patterns. This impact becomes more pronounced at higher frequencies. Moreover, the front position results show strong distortions in patterns compared to the center position. The results imply that when analyzing the installed locomotive antenna pattern beside the chassis, the impact of superstructures and the impact of the mounting position must be carefully considered.