Systems and methods for detecting defects in an antenna array and/or in a device coupled to the antenna array

• Main Authors: LEE GREGORY STEVEN, COLEMAN CHRISTOPHER L, VANWIGGEREN GREGORY DOUGLAS
• Format: Patent
• Language: Chinese; English
• Published: 23.03.2018
• Subjects: MEASURING; MEASURING ELECTRIC VARIABLES; MEASURING MAGNETIC VARIABLES; PHYSICS; TESTING

Various illustrative embodiments disclosed herein generally pertain to detecting defects by using a radio-frequency debugging signal transmitted by a transmitting antenna array towards a receiving antenna located in a far-field region of the transmitting antenna array. The radio-frequency debugging signal, which is configured to provide information pertaining to a signal radiation distribution ofthe transmitting antenna array, is received in the receiving antenna and conveyed to a test unit. The test unit digitizes the received radio-frequency debugging signal to obtain a digital dataset andapplies a back-propagation algorithm to the digital dataset for deriving a reconstructed near-field representation of the transmitting array. The reconstructed near-field representation is compared toa signal radiation reference template in order to detect a defective amplitude and/or a defective phase that is indicative of a defect in the transmitting antenna array and/or a device-under-test coupled to the transmitting an