Channel Calibration for Digital Array Radar in the Presence of Amplitude-Phase and Mutual Coupling Errors

摘要

Amplitude-phase errors and mutual coupling errors among multi-channels in digital array radar (DAR) will seriously deteriorate the performance of signal processing such as digital beam-forming (DBF) and high resolution direction finding, hi this paper, a combined algorithm for error calibration in DAR has been demonstrated. The algorithm firstly estimates the amplitude-phase errors of each channel using interior calibration sources with the help of the calibration network. Then the signals from far field are received and the amplitude-phase errors are compensated. According to the subspace theories, the relationship between the principle eigenvectors and distorted steering vectors is expressed, and the cost function containing the mutual coupling matrix (MCM) and incident directions is established. Making use of the properties of MCM of uniform linear array, Gauss-Newton method is implied to iteratively compute the MCM and the direction of arrival (DOA). Simulation results have shown the effectiveness and performance of proposed algorithm. Based on an 8-elements DAR test-bed, experiments are carried out in anechoic chamber. The results illustrate that the algorithm is feasible in actual systems.