SELF CALIBRATING CONFORMAL PHASED ARRAY

摘要

A system and method for a self calibrating conformal phased array are disclosed involving a plurality of transmit/receive elements; a plurality of embedded, calibration transmit/receive elements scattered across the array; and at least one back-end processor. The calibration transmit/receive elements are used to track any physical calibration transmit/receive element's relative position change caused by array flexure. In one or more embodiments, each of the calibration transmit/receive elements transmit a tone using a small antenna, and the other calibration transmit/receive elements receive the tone using small antennas. The calibration transmit/receive elements that receive the tone measure the phase of the received tone. At least one back-end processor uses the measured phases to determine differential phases from a phase calibration table. Also, at least one back-end processor uses the differential phases to compute a change in apparent location of each transmitting calibration transmit/receive element.