METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR REMOTELY CALIBRATING A PHASED ARRAY SYSTEM USED FOR SATELLITE COMMUNICATION

摘要

A method and apparatus for remotely calibrating a system having a plurality of N elements, such as a phased array system, is provided. The method includes generating coherent signals, such as a calibration signal and a reference signal having a predetermined spectral relationship between one another. The calibration signal which is applied to each respective one of the plurality of N elements can be orthogonally encoded based on the entries of a predetermined invertible encoding matrix, such as a binary Hadamard matrix, to generate first and second sets of orthogonally encoded signals. The first and second sets of orthogonally encoded signals and the reference signal are transmitted to a remote location. The transmitted first and second sets of orthogonally encoded signals are coherently detected at the remote location. The coherently detected first and second sets of orthogonally encoded signals are then decoded using the inverse of the predetermined invertible encoding matrix to generate a set of decoded signals. The set of decoded signals is then processed for generating calibration data for each element of the system.