Apparatus and method for determining angles-of-arrival and polarization of incoming RF signals

摘要

An apparatus and method for determining the angles-of-arrival and the polarization states of incoming RF signals of unknown polarization using three or more RF sensing antenna elements of differing yet known orientations of polarization. The apparatus includes an array of broad gain, substantially identical, RF sensing antenna elements of differing yet known orientations of polarization, an antenna element selection network, RF receiver channels, processing means for determining uncorrected phase differences from received RF signal phases for pairs of antennas, processing means for determining received signal powers, processing means for determining from RF signal powers corrections to the phase difference errors caused by polarization diversity between pairs of antennas, processing means for correcting uncorrected phase differences with determined phase difference corrections, processing means for determining incoming RF signal frequencies, processing means for determining ambiguous and unambiguous angles-of-arrival of incoming RF signals and processing means for determining the polarization states of incoming RF signals.