Calibration of a DBF receiving array antenna by using a reference sequence for systems in power-limited channels

摘要

A method for fast calibration of digital-beam- forming(DBF)receiving array antennas by means of digital sig- nal processing is described. It uses plane wave arriving from a known direction that contains a known reference sequence. Non- uniformities of the amplitude and phase in the branches are de- tected and calibrated in real time by the complex correlation of a replica of the known reference sequence with the received sig- nal obtained from the output signals of each element. No special circuit for calibration is required, and the non-uniformities can quickly be compensated for by digital signal processing even for an array antenna with many antenna elements. This method enables highly accurate calibration of large-scale array antennas operating at a high frequency even under a low signal-to-noise power ratio(SNR).