Main Content

polarpattern

Interactive plot of radiation patterns in polar format

expand all in page

Description

The polarpattern object creates an interactive plot of antenna or array radiation patterns in polar format with uniformly spaced angles. You can also plot other types of polar data. Use this plot for interactive data visualization or measurement. To change the properties, zoom in, or add more data to the plot, right-click or scroll or drag the Polar Measurement window.

Creation

Syntax

polarpattern
polarpattern(data)
polarpattern(angle,magnitude)
polarpattern(___,Name=Value)
polarpattern(ax,___)
p = polarpattern(___)
p = polarpattern('gco')

Description

polarpattern creates an empty polar plot. You can add plots of antenna or array radiation patterns and other types of data to the plot by importing saved polari objects from MAT-files.

polarpattern(data) creates a polar plot with real magnitude values in the vector data with angles uniformly spaced on the unit circle starting at 0 degrees. Magnitudes may be negative when dB data units are used. For a matrix data, columns of data are independent datasets. For N-data arrays, dimensions 2 and greater are independent datasets. For complex values, magnitude and angle are derived from data.

example

polarpattern(angle,magnitude) creates a polar plot for a set of angles and corresponding magnitudes. You can also create polar plots from multiple sets of angle vectors in degrees and corresponding sets of magnitude using the syntax: polarpattern(angle1, magnitude1,..., angleN, magnitudeN).

example

polarpattern(___,Name=Value) creates a polar plot, with additional PolarPattern Properties (Antenna Toolbox) specified by one or more name-value pair arguments. Name is the property name and Value is the corresponding property value. You can specify several name-value pair arguments in any order as Name1=Value1, ..., NameN=ValueN. Unspecified properties retain their default values. To list all the property names and values, use details(p). You can use the properties to extract data about the radiation pattern from the polar plot. For example, p = polarpattern(data,Peaks=3) identifies and displays the three highest peaks in the pattern data.

example

polarpattern(ax,___) creates a polar plot using axes object, ax instead of the current axes object.

p = polarpattern(___) creates a polari object using any combination of input arguments from the previous syntaxes. Use this syntax to customize the plot or add measurements.

p = polarpattern('gco') creates a polar plot object from the polar pattern in the current figure.

Input Arguments

expand all

Antenna or array data, specified as one of these options

  • A real length-M vector, containing M magnitude values with angles their defined as (0:M−1)M×360∘ degrees.

  • A real M-by-N matrix, containing M magnitude values in a dataset and N such independent data sets. Each column of the matrix has angles in degrees from the vector (0:M−1)M×360∘.

  • A real multidimensional array. Arrays with 2 or more dimensions contain independent data sets.

  • A complex vector or matrix, that contains Cartesian coordinates (x, y) of each point. x contains the real part of the data and y contains the imaginary part of the data.

When the data is in a logarithmic form, such as dB, magnitude values can be negative. In this case, polarpattern plots the smallest magnitude values at the origin of the polar plot and largest magnitude values at the maximum radius.

Data Types: double
Complex Number Support: Yes

Set of angles in degrees, specified as a vector.

Data Types: double

Set of magnitude values, specified as a vector or a matrix. If you specify this input as a matrix, each column is an independent set of magnitude values and corresponds to the same set of angles in the same column of the angle input.

Data Types: double

Axes of the polar plot, specified as an axes object.

Output Arguments

expand all

Stores a polari object with a set of properties. Use p to modify properties of the plot after creation. For a list of all the properties, see PolarPattern Properties (Antenna Toolbox).

Example: P = polarplot(V)

Object Functions

Examples

collapse all

Open Live Script

Specify a cosine antenna pattern from 0° to 360° in azimuth at 0° elevation. Then, plot the antenna pattern using polarpattern.

Create the pattern.

az = [0:360];
p = abs(cosd(az));

Plot the polar pattern of the antenna for an azimuth cut at 0° elevation.

polarpattern(p,'TitleTopTextInterpreter','tex','TitleTop','Azimuth Cut (Elevation Angle = 0^{\circ})');

Figure Polar Measurement contains an axes object. The hidden axes object contains 2 objects of type line, text.

Open Live Script

Construct a 3-by-2 rectangular lattice URA. By default, the array consists of isotropic antenna elements. Assume the operating frequency is 1 GHz. Then, plot the antenna pattern using polarpattern.

Create the array.

array = phased.URA('Size',[3 2]);
fc = 1.0e9;

Plot the polar pattern of the array for an elevation cut at 0° azimuth.

c = physconst('LightSpeed');
p = pattern(array,fc,[-180:180],0,'PropagationSpeed',c,'CoordinateSystem',...
    'polar','Type','powerdb','Normalize',true);
polarpattern([-180:180],p);

Figure Polar Measurement contains an axes object. The hidden axes object contains an object of type line.

Open Live Script

Specify a short-dipole antenna with the dipole oriented along the z-axis and operating at 250 MHz. Then, plot the antenna pattern using polarpattern and specifying a title.

Create the short-dipole antenna element System object™.

antenna = phased.ShortDipoleAntennaElement('FrequencyRange',[100e6,600e6],...
    'AxisDirection','Z');
fc = 250.0e6;

Plot the polar pattern of the antenna for an elevation cut at 0° azimuth.

v = pattern(antenna,fc,0,-90:90);
polarpattern([-90:90],v,'TitleTopTextInterpreter','tex',...
    'TitleTop','Elevation Cut (Azimuth Angle = 0^{\circ})');

Figure Polar Measurement contains an axes object. The hidden axes object contains 2 objects of type line, text.

Open Live Script

Specify a short-dipole antenna with the dipole oriented along the z-axis and operating at 250 MHz. Then, plot the antenna pattern using polarpattern and specifying a title.

Create the short-dipole antenna element System object™.

antenna = phased.ShortDipoleAntennaElement('FrequencyRange',[100e6,600e6],...
    'AxisDirection','Z');
fc = 250.0e6;

Create the polar pattern of the antenna for an elevation cut at 0° azimuth.

p = pattern(antenna,fc,0,-90:90);
P = polarpattern([-90:90],p,'TitleTopTextInterpreter','tex',...
    'TitleTop','Elevation Cut (Azimuth Angle = 0^{\circ})');

Figure Polar Measurement contains an axes object. The hidden axes object contains 2 objects of type line, text.

Display the properties of the plot.

details(P)
  internal.polari handle with properties:

                      Interactive: 1
                     LegendLabels: ''
                   AntennaMetrics: 0
                        CleanData: 0
                        AngleData: [181x1 double]
                    MagnitudeData: [181x1 double]
                    IntensityData: []
                     AngleMarkers: [0x1 struct]
                    CursorMarkers: [0x1 struct]
                      PeakMarkers: [0x1 struct]
                    ActiveDataset: 1
                  AngleLimVisible: 0
                    LegendVisible: 0
                             Span: 0
                         TitleTop: 'Elevation Cut (Azimuth Angle = 0^{\circ})'
                      TitleBottom: ''
                            Peaks: []
                         FontSize: 10
                     MagnitudeLim: [-40 10]
               MagnitudeAxisAngle: 75
                    MagnitudeTick: [-40 -30 -20 -10 0 10]
          MagnitudeTickLabelColor: [0.1294 0.1294 0.1294]
                         AngleLim: [0 360]
                   AngleTickLabel: {'0'  '15'  '30'  '45'  '60'  '75'  '90'  '105'  '120'  '135'  '150'  '165'  '180'  '195'  '210'  '225'  '240'  '255'  '270'  '285'  '300'  '315'  '330'  '345'}
              AngleTickLabelColor: [0.1294 0.1294 0.1294]
       TitleTopFontSizeMultiplier: 1.1000
    TitleBottomFontSizeMultiplier: 0.9000
               TitleTopFontWeight: 'bold'
            TitleBottomFontWeight: 'normal'
          TitleTopTextInterpreter: 'tex'
       TitleBottomTextInterpreter: 'none'
                   TitleTopOffset: 0.1500
                TitleBottomOffset: 0.1500
                         ToolTips: 1
               MagnitudeLimBounds: [-Inf Inf]
      MagnitudeFontSizeMultiplier: 0.9000
          AngleFontSizeMultiplier: 1
                       AngleAtTop: 90
                   AngleDirection: 'ccw'
                  AngleResolution: 15
           AngleTickLabelRotation: 0
             AngleTickLabelFormat: '360'
          AngleTickLabelColorMode: 'contrast'
                     PeaksOptions: {}
            AngleTickLabelVisible: 1
                            Style: 'line'
                        DataUnits: 'dB'
                     DisplayUnits: 'dB'
                    NormalizeData: 0
                 ConnectEndpoints: 0
              DisconnectAngleGaps: 0
                        EdgeColor: 'k'
                        LineStyle: '-'
                        LineWidth: 1
                         FontName: 'Helvetica'
                     FontSizeMode: 'auto'
              GridForegroundColor: [0.3804 0.3804 0.3804]
              GridBackgroundColor: [1 1 1]
                 DrawGridToOrigin: 0
                     GridOverData: 0
               GridAutoRefinement: 0
                        GridWidth: 0.5000
                      GridVisible: 1
                         ClipData: 1
                  TemporaryCursor: 1
                 MagnitudeLimMode: 'auto'
           MagnitudeAxisAngleMode: 'auto'
                MagnitudeTickMode: 'auto'
      MagnitudeTickLabelColorMode: 'contrast'
        MagnitudeTickLabelVisible: 1
                   MagnitudeUnits: ''
                   IntensityUnits: ''
                           Marker: 'none'
                       MarkerSize: 6
                           Parent: [1x1 Figure]
                         NextPlot: 'replace'
                       ColorOrder: [7x3 double]
                  ColorOrderIndex: 1
                     SectorsColor: [16x3 double]
                     SectorsAlpha: 0.5000
                             View: 'full'
                    ZeroAngleLine: 0

Version History

Introduced in R2016a

See Also

(Antenna Toolbox) | (Antenna Toolbox) | (Antenna Toolbox)