A Precise Calibration Method on Phase Center of Uplink Antenna Array Considering Its Actual Pointing

Abstract

With regard to the inferior techniques and low accuracy of phase center calibration of an antenna array, this paper proposes a new calibration method considering the actual antenna pointing by introducing a precise engineering surveying technique to measure the real state of antennas. First, an industrial photogrammetric system is utilized to obtain the coordinates of points on antenna panels in different postures, and the actual pointing of the mechanical axis is obtained via least-squares fitting. Then, based on this, the coordinates of antenna rotation center are obtained by seeking the intersection of mechanical axes via using the matrix method. Finally, the mechanical axis in arbitrary postures is estimated based on the inverse-angle weighting interpolation method, and the reliable phase center is obtained by moving a fixed length from the projective center along the mechanical axis. An uplink antenna array including three ?3m antennas is taken as experimental object, and all photogrammetric coordinate systems are unified by the engineering control network, with each antenna phase center precisely calibrated via the proposed method. The results of electrical signal synthesis indicate that this method can effectively overcome the influence of gravity deformation and mechanical installation error, and enhance the synthetic signal magnitude of the uplink antenna array.

Keywords

• |uplink array|phase center|rotation center|actual antenna pointing|three-dimension control network|precise calibration