Phased array calibration system with high accuracy and low complexity

Abstract

This paper presents a highly efficient phased array calibration system for phase and mag-nitude error correction. The proposed calibration system is based on far-field scanning of the array antenna under test at factory level. Since the proposed structure requires a magnitude detection only for vector calibration, low circuit complexity can be achieved. Unlike the conventional far-field cal-ibration based on rotating-element electric-field vector (REV) method to find maximum vector-sum point, the proposed system detects the minimum vector-sum point and tracks the behavior of the null point. To verify the feasibility of the proposed system for large-scale array antenna, 4 x 4 phased array antenna is implemented at 5.8 GHz. Then, the proposed method is applied to the phased array antenna and compared with the conventional REV method.(c) 2023 THE AUTHORS. Published by Elsevier BV on behalf of Faculty of Engineering, Alexandria University. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).