Impact of experimental calibration on the performance of conventional direction finders

An important idea for improving the practical performance of direction finding (DF) systems involves the use of calibration tables. These are generally based on experimental measurements of systemic errors obtained using a known signal to illuminate the antenna. However, the accuracy of the calibrat...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in2009 Canadian Conference on Electrical and Computer Engineering pp. 1123 - 1128
Main Authors Henault, S., Antar, Y.M.M., Rajan, S., Inkol, R., Wang, S.
Format Conference Proceeding
LanguageEnglish
Published IEEE 01.05.2009
Subjects
Antenna arrays
Antenna measurements
Butler matrix
Calibration
Direction finding
direction of arrival
Direction of arrival estimation
Directive antennas
estimation
Frequency measurement
Military computing
Mutual coupling
Phased arrays
Reflection
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Summary:An important idea for improving the practical performance of direction finding (DF) systems involves the use of calibration tables. These are generally based on experimental measurements of systemic errors obtained using a known signal to illuminate the antenna. However, the accuracy of the calibration data, and therefore that of the system, is affected by various error mechanisms. This paper uses full-wave analysis to investigate the errors resulting from a spherical wave front and from ground reflections when experimental methods are used to produce calibration data. These results show that the distance between the calibration source and the DF system should be larger than previously believed and that additional restrictions on the operating frequency ranges of the DF system may be necessary when experimental calibration data is used.
ISBN:1424435099
9781424435098
ISSN:0840-7789
2576-7046
DOI:10.1109/CCECE.2009.5090302