The Boeing Company

Brian D Cordill

Peter S Wittenberg

James Douglas Franklin

Ron Y Lee

Bader Akbik

Jeffrey J Calvagna

Nikolay A Angelov

Systems and methods are provided for phased array passband calibration, which permits repeated calibration of the antenna system in the field without a moving far field sensor. An implementation includes an equalization filter coupled to a phased array feed; a calibration probe disposed to couple with an antenna array to transfer radio frequency (RF) energy; a database of probe-to-far-field (FF) transforms having a probe-to-FF transform for each of a plurality of incidence angles; a calibration component operable to: receive calibration probe measurements for a plurality of frequencies; and determine a calculated phased array passband response for at least a first incidence angle, based at least on the calibration probe measurements and a probe-to-FF transform for the first incidence angle; and a filter generation component operable to generate a tuning configuration for the equalization filter, based at least on the calculated phased array passband response.

Phased array passband calibration

A method for self-calibrating a radar system includes forming a calibration loop-back signal path. The calibration loop-back signal path is configured for determining a passband response of each of a radio frequency (RF) signal path, a local oscillator (LO) signal path, and an intermediate frequency (IF) signal path of the radar system. The method also includes transmitting a set of calibration signals into the RF signal path and the LO signal path and measuring output signals from the IF signal path in a receiver of the radar system. The method further includes determining the passband response of each of the RF signal path, the LO signal path and the IF signal path from the measured output signals and compensating for distortions and/or non-linearities in the signal paths using the passband response of each signal path.

Self-compensating radar system

A signal receiver includes receive circuitry. The signal receiver further includes a processor coupled to the receive circuitry and configured to receive, from a filter, a stream of samples including a first set of samples. A data rate of an input of the filter may correspond to a data rate of an output of the filter. The first set of samples includes multiple samples. The processor is further configured to perform a detection operation on the first set of samples. The processor is further configured to detect a signal emitter based on the detection operation.

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San Pedro, CA, United States of America

Brian D Cordill