On-site calibration of array antenna systems

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10663563-B2
Application number	US-201715715568-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Sep 26, 2017
Priority date	Nov 19, 2014
Publication date	May 26, 2020
Grant date	May 26, 2020

Abstract

The present invention is directed to an antenna system and a method that is configured to compute calibration element voltage gain patterns as functions of a digital antenna model and a plurality of complex beamformer voltages, determine calibration through path transfer functions from the plurality of complex voltages, and remove the calibration element voltage gain patterns from the calibration through path transfer functions to determine a beamforming network transfer function. The beamforming network transfer function and the far-field element voltage gain patterns are combined to obtain a system transfer function used to revise a calibration table.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A system comprising:
an antenna including a plurality of antenna elements arranged in an antenna configuration, the plurality of antenna elements providing a plurality of antenna excitation signals in response to the calibration signal received from a probe antenna;
a beamforming network including a beamformer port and a plurality of channels, each channel including a signal conditioning module coupled to a corresponding antenna element of the plurality of antenna elements, the signal conditioning module having a plurality of conditioning states specifying at least one phase state, the plurality of antenna excitation signals corresponding to a plurality of complex voltages at the beamformer port;
a control system coupled to the beamforming network, the control system being configured to select a conditioning state of the plurality of conditioning states in accordance with a calibration control rule;
a memory configured to store a digital antenna model and far-field element voltage gain patterns corresponding to the antenna configuration, the memory storing a calibration table configured to associate each steering angle in a set of steering angles to beamformer port complex voltages; and
a processor configured to compute calibration element voltage gain patterns as functions of the digital antenna model and the plurality of complex voltages, determine calibration through path transfer functions from the plurality of complex voltages, and remove the calibration element voltage gain patterns from the calibration through path transfer functions to determine a beamforming network transfer function, the processor being configured to combine the beamforming network transfer function and the far-field element voltage gain patterns to obtain a system transfer function, wherein the system transfer function associates each steering angle in the far-field element voltage gain patterns to a beamformer port complex voltages in accordance with the beamforming network transfer function.

2. The system of claim 1 , wherein the set of steering angles is a function of frequency or system temperature.

3. The system of claim 1 , wherein the beamformer network includes a receiver circuit, the set of steering angles providing angle-of-arrival information for an electromagnetic signal incident the antenna and received by the receiver.

4. The system of claim 1 , wherein the beamformer network includes a transmitter, the set of steering angles providing scanning information for radiating an electromagnetic signal via the antenna at predetermined angle relative to the antenna's boresight.

5. The system of claim 1 , wherein the antenna configuration is selected from a group of antenna configurations including a non-phased array antenna, a phased array antenna, a planar phased array antenna, a non-planar phased array antenna, a conformal phased array antenna, or a cylindrical phased array antenna.

6. The system of claim 1 , wherein an antenna element of the plurality of antenna elements is selected from a group of antenna elements including horn antenna elements, reflector antenna elements, dipole antenna elements, loop antenna elements, or slot antenna elements.

7. The system of claim 1 , wherein the system is configured as a radar system, a sensor system, a communication system, a Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) system or a radiometry system.

8. The system of claim 7 , wherein the beamformer network further comprises:
a beam summer coupled to the a plurality of channels, the beam summer being configured to combine a plurality of incident antenna excitation signals and provide at least one RF sum beam signal;
a receiver coupled to the beam summer, the receiver being configured to translate the RF sum beam signal to an intermediate frequency (IF) signal; and
at least one digital circuit element configured to convert the IF signal to thus provide at least one received complex voltage at the beamformer port.

9. The system of claim 8 , wherein the control system is configured to select the conditioning state for the plurality of channels in accordance with a predetermined receiver mode control rule.

10. The system of claim 8 , wherein the control system is configured to retrieve an angle-of-arrival from the set of steering angles in the revised calibration table corresponding to the at least one received complex voltage at the beamformer port.

11. The system of claim 8 , wherein the control system is configured to retrieve an angle-of-arrival from the set of steering angles in the revised calibration table corresponding to the at least one received complex voltage at the beamformer port.

12. The system of claim 8 , wherein the control system or the processor is configured to find a monopulse ratio, an angle estimation ratio, a maximum likelihood angle estimation ratio, or a MIMO transfer function corresponding to the at least one received complex voltage.

13. The system of claim 8 , wherein the signal conditioning module is a transmit/receive (T/R) module, and the plurality of conditioning states are control bits for receive phase shifters or receive attenuators coupled to the beam summer.

14. The system of claim 7 , wherein the beamformer network further comprises:
at least one digital circuit element configured to convert a complex voltage at the beamformer port into an analog signal;
an upconverter network coupled to the at least one digital circuit element and configured to translate the analog signal into an RF transmit signal; and
a beam summer coupled to the upconverter network and configured to split the RF transmit signal into a plurality of RF difference signals.

15. The system of 14 , wherein the control system is configured to select the conditioning state for the plurality of channels in accordance with a selected transmit steering angle in the set of steering angles.

16. The system of claim 14 , wherein the signal conditioning module is a transmit/receive (T/R) module, and the plurality of conditioning states are control bits for transmit phase shifters or transmit attenuators coupled to the beam divider.

17. The system of claim 7 , wherein the processor and the memory are disposed in the radar system housing.

18. The system of claim 1 , wherein the processor and at least a portion of the memory are disposed in a calibration system housing.

19. The system of claim 1 , further comprising a CEM tool configured to generate the digital antenna model and the far-field element voltage gain patterns based on the antenna configuration.

20. The system of claim 1 , wherein the calibration control rule is configured to direct the control system to sequentially operate one signal conditioning module at a time with all other deselected signal conditioning modules being disabled, the control system being directed to sequence through each of the plurality of conditioning states while operating the signal conditioning module.

21. The system of claim 1 , wherein the calibration control rule is configured to direct the control system to operate the signal conditioning modules corresponding to the plurality of channels in accordance with a Hadamard control rule.

22. The system of claim 21 , wherein the Hadamard control rule requires (4+2p)N measurements of the calibration signal, wherein p denotes the number of the plurality of conditioning states.

23. The system of claim 1 , wherein the beamforming network transfer function is given by the expression: b(n)=s 0 (n)/

Assignees

• Src Inc

Inventors

• Schuman Harvey K

Classifications

• G01S7/40

  Means for monitoring or calibrating · CPC title

• G01S7/4026 Primary

  Antenna boresight · CPC title

• G01S7/2813

  Means providing a modification of the radiation pattern for cancelling noise, clutter or interfering signals, e.g. side lobe suppression, side lobe blanking, null-steering arrays (specially adapted to secondary radar systems G01S13/762; aerials or aerials systems H01Q21/29, H01Q25/00) · CPC title

• G01S13/4463

  using phased arrays · CPC title

• H01Q3/267 Primary

  Phased-array testing or checking devices · CPC title