V.V. Kurganov¹, V.I. Djigan²

1 National Research University of Electronic Technology «MIET» (Moscow, Zelenograd, Russia)

2 The Institute for Design Problems in Microelectronics of the Russian Academy of Sciences  (Moscow, Zelenograd, Russia)

Antenna arrays are widely used as the directional antennas in the different radio systems today. The antenna array is a complex multichannel system. Its main part consists of the analogue active and passive radiofrequency devices. The variation of the device characteristics usually grows as the operation frequency increases. This leads to the non-identical characteristics of the antenna array channels. The accuracy of the mechanical assembling (accuracy of the devices placement, soldering quality etc.) of the antenna array, environmental temperature, stability of the voltage sources and others also have an influence on the non-identity of the array channel characteristics. Consequently, these characteristics are often become non-identical after the manufacturing or event during the antenna array operation. This make difficult and often even impossible to control of the antenna arrays by means of the algorithms, which are usually based on the ideal array model, i.e. array with the identical characteristics of its channels. This problem is solved by means of the array calibration. The calibration consists of the estimation of the complex-valued array channel gains and their variation compensation after the manufacturing or taking it’s into the consideration during the field operation. The aim of this paper is to present the new simple algorithms for the antenna array calibration. They belong to the phaseless family of the calibration algorithms, because their implementation does not require the expensive equipment for the phase measurement. The algorithms use only three measurements of the antenna array output power per calibrated channel under three the phase states of the channel: 0°, 90° and 270° or 0°, 90° and 180° The paper presents the explanation and the main steps of the algorithms development, which are based on the geometrical representation of the antenna array signals in its channels. The equations for the channel complex-valued gains (amplitudes and phases) estimation have been obtained by means of the solution of the system of the four real-valued linear equations. It is shown, that as the number of the phaseshifter bits grows and the accuracy of the proposed algorithms approaches to the theoretical value caused by the accuracy of the used phaseshifters and does not depend on the number of the antenna array channels. The Euclidian distance between the radiation patterns of the calibrated by means of these algorithms and ideal arrays also does not depend on the number of the array channels, but depends on the number of the phaseshifter bits. Due to the simplicity, the proposed algorithms can be used not only for the antenna array calibration in special conditions like an anechoic chamber, but also in the field operation.

Kurganov V.V., Djigan V.I. Phaseless antenna array calibration algorithms with minimal number of output power measurements. Radiotekhnika. 2021. V. 85. № 3. P. 96−108. DOI: https://doi.org/10.18127/j00338486-202103-10 (In Russian).

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