A beamforming approach to the self-calibration of phased arrays

TL;DR

This paper introduces a beamforming calibration method for phased array antennas that estimates gain by cross-correlating antenna outputs, relating to the StEFCal algorithm, demonstrated on a 256-element array.

Contribution

It presents a novel beamforming-based calibration technique for phased arrays, linking it to existing algorithms and demonstrating its effectiveness on large arrays.

Findings

Effective gain calibration demonstrated on a 256-element array.

The method relates to the StEFCal algorithm, providing a new perspective.

Successful calibration with few point sources shown in simulations.

Abstract

In this paper, we propose a beamforming method for the calibration of the direction-independent gain of the analog chains of aperture arrays. The gain estimates are obtained by cross-correlating the output voltage of each antenna with a voltage beamformed using the other antennas of the array. When the beamforming weights are equal to the average cross-correlated power, a relation is drawn with the StEFCal algorithm. An example illustrates this approach for few point sources and a 256-element array.