阅读说明：本技术 一种有源相控阵天线的幅相校准方法、系统及设备 (Amplitude and phase calibration method, system and equipment of active phased array antenna ) 是由 罗海卫 詹文龙 卢云 李烨 于 2021-11-30 设计创作，主要内容包括：本发明公开了一种有源相控阵天线的幅相校准方法、系统及设备,涉及阵列天线技术领域。一种有源相控阵天线的幅相校准方法,包括以下步骤：对相控阵天线阵面进行区域划分,划分为中间区域和环绕中间区域的边缘区域；针对中间区域的天线单元采用近场扫描法进行校准；以校准后的中间区域内的天线单元为作为基准单元,对边缘区域内的天线单元采用互耦旋转电矢量法进行校准,并采用由内而外的递推路径。本发明提供的校准方法,根据阵面特征对阵面进行区域划分,并针对不同区域采用与之适配的校准方法,同时兼顾了校准精度与校准效率。(The invention discloses an amplitude and phase calibration method, system and equipment of an active phased array antenna, and relates to the technical field of array antennas. An amplitude and phase calibration method of an active phased array antenna comprises the following steps: dividing the phased array antenna array surface into a middle area and an edge area surrounding the middle area; calibrating the antenna unit in the middle area by adopting a near field scanning method; and taking the antenna units in the middle area after calibration as reference units, calibrating the antenna units in the edge area by adopting a mutual coupling rotating electrical vector method, and adopting a recursion path from inside to outside. The calibration method provided by the invention divides the array surface into regions according to the characteristics of the array surface, adopts the calibration method adaptive to different regions, and simultaneously considers the calibration precision and the calibration efficiency.)

1. An amplitude and phase calibration method of an active phased array antenna is characterized by comprising the following steps:

dividing the phased array antenna array surface into a middle area and an edge area surrounding the middle area;

calibrating the antenna unit in the middle area by adopting a near field scanning method;

and taking the antenna units in the middle area after calibration as reference units, calibrating the antenna units in the edge area by adopting a mutual coupling rotating electrical vector method, and adopting a recursion path from inside to outside.

2. The amplitude and phase calibration method for an active phased array antenna according to claim 1, wherein the near field scanning method comprises the steps of:

configuring a scanning frame for the antenna unit in the middle area;

moving a probe on the scanning frame, and acquiring radiation data of the antenna unit in the middle area;

and selecting a reference unit in the middle area, calculating a calibration coefficient based on the reference unit and the radiation data, and calibrating all the antenna units in the middle area.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the middle region comprises M rows and N columns of antenna elements, the reference element is located in the a-th row and b-th column, and the transmitted electrical signal is represented asX _ab (t)Detecting the transmitting signal of the m-th row and n-th column unitIn the formula (I), wherein,a _mn 、φ _mn respectively the amplitude and the phase of the cell,δ _mn 、σ _mn respectively an amplitude error and a phase error,f _d to calibrate the signal frequency;

comparing the transmitting signals of the m-th row and n-th column units with the transmitting signal of the reference unit to obtain a calibration system。

4. The method of amplitude and phase calibration for an active phased array antenna of claim 1, wherein the reference element is an antenna element adjacent to the edge region.

5. The method of amplitude and phase calibration for an active phased array antenna of claim 4, wherein the mutually coupled rotating electrical vector method comprises:

a first antenna unit and a second antenna unit adjacent to the reference unit simultaneously transmit signals to the reference unit;

keeping the excitation coefficient of the first antenna element unchanged, and making the excitation phase of the second antenna element followAnd changing to obtain the phase of the second antenna unit relative to the first antenna unit.

6. The method of amplitude and phase calibration for an active phased array antenna as claimed in claim 5, wherein said first antenna element is a known calibrated element located in said middle region and said second antenna element is an uncalibrated element located in said edge region.

7. The amplitude and phase calibration method for an active phased array antenna according to claim 5, wherein the reference unit m receives a signalIn the formula, C_m,nRepresenting the spatial mutual coupling factor, C, between the reference element m and the first antenna element n_m,n+1Denotes the spatial mutual coupling factor, W, between the reference element m and the second antenna element n +1_mRepresents the excitation amplitude, W, of the reference cell m_nRepresenting the excitation amplitude, W, of the first antenna element n_n+1The excitation amplitude of the second antenna element n + 1; wherein C is_m,n= C_m,n+1。

8. The amplitude and phase calibration method for the active phased array antenna as claimed in claim 5, wherein after the relative phase is obtained, the channel amplitude ratio of the second antenna element relative to the first antenna element is obtained by a mutual coupling calibration method.

9. An amplitude and phase calibration system for an active phased array antenna, comprising:

a region division module: the device comprises a phase array antenna array surface, a phase detection unit and a control unit, wherein the phase array antenna array surface is used for carrying out region division on the phase array antenna array surface and is divided into a middle region and an edge region surrounding the middle region;

a first calibration module: the antenna unit is used for calibrating the antenna unit in the middle area by adopting a near field scanning method;

a second calibration module: and taking the antenna units in the middle area after calibration as reference units, and using a mutual coupling rotation electric vector method to calibrate the antenna units in the edge area, and using a recursion path from inside to outside.

10. An electronic device, comprising: at least one processor, at least one memory, and a data bus;

the processor and the memory complete mutual communication through the data bus; the memory stores program instructions executable by the processor, the processor calling the program instructions to perform the method of any of claims 1 to 8.

Technical Field

The invention relates to the technical field of array antennas, in particular to an amplitude and phase calibration method, system and equipment of an active phased array antenna.

Background

The phased array antenna is composed of a plurality of antenna units, the wave beams of each unit are synthesized to form antenna wave beams to be radiated, and the direction of the synthesized wave beams is controlled by adjusting the phase of each unit when the phased array antenna works. The amplitude-phase error of the receiving and transmitting channel of the phased array antenna can affect the synthesized beam of the antenna, and the amplitude-phase calibration of the array surface is particularly important in order to obtain good beam form and pointing accuracy.

Aiming at a large active phased array antenna with a single-channel transceiving function, the problem of low precision or overlong calibration time exists by adopting the conventional calibration mode.

Disclosure of Invention

To overcome the above problems or to partially solve the above problems, an object of the present invention is to provide an amplitude and phase calibration method, system and device for an active phased array antenna, so as to improve the calibration efficiency and accuracy.

The invention is realized by the following technical scheme:

in a first aspect, an embodiment of the present invention provides an amplitude and phase calibration method for an active phased array antenna, including the following steps:

s101, carrying out area division on a phased array antenna array surface, and dividing the phased array antenna array surface into a middle area and an edge area surrounding the middle area; s102, aiming at the antenna unit in the middle area, calibrating by adopting a near field scanning method; and S103, taking the antenna units in the middle area after calibration as reference units, calibrating the antenna units in the edge area by adopting a mutual coupling rotating electrical vector method, and adopting a recursion path from inside to outside.

Based on the first aspect, in some embodiments of the present invention, the near field scanning method includes the following steps: configuring a scanning frame for the antenna unit in the middle area; moving a probe on the scanning frame, and acquiring radiation data of the antenna unit in the middle area; and selecting a reference unit in the middle area, calculating a calibration coefficient based on the reference unit and the radiation data, and calibrating all the antenna units in the middle area.

According to the first aspect, in some embodiments of the present invention, the middle area includes M rows and N columns of antenna elements, the reference element is located in the a-th row and b-th column, and the transmitted electrical signal is represented asDetecting the transmitting signal of the m-th row and n-th column unitIn the formula (I), wherein,a _mn 、φ _mn respectively the amplitude and the phase of the cell,δ _mn 、σ _mn respectively an amplitude error and a phase error,f _d to calibrate the signal frequency; comparing the transmitting signals of the m-th row and n-th column units with the transmitting signal of the reference unit to obtain a calibration coefficient。

In some embodiments of the invention based on the first aspect, the reference element is an antenna element adjacent to the edge region.

Based on the first aspect, in some embodiments of the present invention, the mutual coupling rotating electrical vector method includes: a first antenna unit and a second antenna unit adjacent to the reference unit simultaneously transmit signals to the reference unit; keeping the excitation coefficient of the first antenna element unchanged, and making the excitation phase of the second antenna element followThe phase of the second antenna element relative to the first antenna element is obtained.

Based on the first aspect, in some embodiments of the invention, the first antenna unit is a known calibration unit located in the middle area, and the second antenna unit is an uncalibrated unit located in the edge area.

Based on the first aspect, in some embodiments of the present invention, the reference unit m receives a signalWherein, C_m,nRepresenting the spatial mutual coupling factor, C, between the reference element m and the first antenna element n_m,n+1Denotes the spatial mutual coupling factor, W, between the reference element m and the second antenna element n +1_mRepresents the excitation amplitude, W, of the reference cell m_nRepresenting the excitation amplitude, W, of the first antenna element n_n+1The excitation amplitude of the second antenna element n + 1; wherein C is_m,n+1= C_m,n。

Based on the first aspect, in some embodiments of the present invention, after the relative phase is obtained, the channel amplitude ratio of the second antenna element relative to the first antenna element is obtained through a mutual coupling calibration method.

In a second aspect, an embodiment of the present invention provides a system for calibrating an amplitude phase of an active phased array antenna, where the system includes: a region division module: the phased array antenna array surface area dividing device is used for dividing a phased array antenna array surface into a middle area and an edge area surrounding the middle area; a first calibration module: the antenna unit in the middle area is calibrated by adopting a near field scanning method; a second calibration module: and taking the antenna units in the middle area after calibration as reference units, and using a mutual coupling rotation electric vector method to calibrate the antenna units in the edge area, and using a recursion path from inside to outside.

In a third aspect, an embodiment of the present invention provides an electronic device, including: at least one processor, at least one memory, and a data bus; wherein, the processor and the memory complete mutual communication through the data bus; the memory stores program instructions executable by the processor, and the processor calls the program instructions to execute the one or more programs or methods, such as: s101, carrying out area division on a phased array antenna array surface, and dividing the phased array antenna array surface into a middle area and an edge area surrounding the middle area; s102, aiming at the antenna unit in the middle area, calibrating by adopting a near field scanning method; and S103, taking the antenna units in the middle area after calibration as reference units, calibrating the antenna units in the edge area by adopting a mutual coupling rotating electrical vector method, and adopting a recursion path from inside to outside.

Compared with the prior art, the invention at least has the following advantages and beneficial effects:

according to the calibration method provided by the invention, the array surface is divided into the middle area and the edge area according to the array surface characteristics, the middle area is calibrated by adopting a field scanning method, then the antenna units in the middle area after calibration are taken as reference units, and the antenna units in the edge area are calibrated by adopting a mutual coupling rotation electric vector method, so that the amplitude and phase accuracy of the reference units during the calibration of the mutual coupling rotation electric vector method can be ensured, and the calibration of the edge area by adopting the mutual coupling rotation electric vector method can improve the antenna calibration efficiency and save the calibration time.

Drawings

In order to more clearly illustrate the technical solutions of the exemplary embodiments of the present invention, the drawings that are required to be used in the embodiments will be briefly described below, it should be understood that the following drawings only illustrate some embodiments of the present invention and therefore should not be considered as limiting the scope, and that for those skilled in the art, other related drawings can be obtained from these drawings without inventive effort. In the drawings:

fig. 1 is a schematic flowchart of an embodiment of a method for amplitude and phase calibration of an active phased array antenna;

fig. 2 is a schematic diagram illustrating the division of the wavefront regions in an embodiment of the amplitude and phase calibration method for an active phased array antenna;

FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram of an embodiment of a method for amplitude and phase calibration of an active phased array antenna according to the method of mutually coupled rotating electrical vectors;

FIG. 4 is a block diagram of one embodiment of an amplitude and phase calibration system for an active phased array antenna;

fig. 5 is a block diagram of an electronic device.

Icon: 1-a processor; 2-a memory; 3-a data bus; 10-the middle region; 20-edge area; 100-a region division module; 200-a first calibration module; 300-second calibration module.

Detailed Description

In order to make the objects, technical solutions and advantages of the present invention more apparent, the present invention is further described in detail below with reference to examples and accompanying drawings, and the exemplary embodiments and descriptions thereof are only used for explaining the present invention and are not meant to limit the present invention.

It should be noted that the terms "first", "second", etc. appearing in the description of the present invention are used merely for distinguishing between the descriptions and are not intended to indicate or imply relative importance.

Example 1

Referring to fig. 1, fig. 2 and fig. 3, an embodiment of the invention provides an amplitude and phase calibration method for an active phased array antenna, which includes the following steps:

s101, carrying out area division on a phased array antenna array surface, and dividing the phased array antenna array surface into a middle area 10 and an edge area 20 surrounding the middle area 10;

due to the manufacturing tolerance and the mutual coupling of the antennas, a large amplitude-phase error generally exists between the channels of the antennas, and therefore the calibration is needed to ensure that the performance of the antennas meets the design requirements. The common near field scanning method is based on an electromagnetic field theory, and a far field directional diagram and array amplitude-phase distribution are obtained through numerical calculation by sampling an electric field on a closed surface surrounding an array through a probe. The method is simple to operate, high in measurement accuracy and applicable to array antennas of various systems, but mutual coupling effect existing among array elements is easily ignored by using the method, and the method has high requirement on synchronism of a measuring instrument, long scanning time, large data volume and low measurement efficiency.

Besides the near field scanning method, the rotation vector method also has higher calibration precision, and the amplitude and phase value of each unit channel can be calculated by measuring a sine curve of which the signal amplitude changes along with the phase of a single antenna unit without a vector measuring instrument. However, as in the near field scanning method, if the number of array elements is large, a long calibration time is required. In addition, the active phased array (namely, each unit channel of the array can realize independent transceiving function) can be calibrated by adopting a mutual coupling calibration method, and the mutual coupling calibration method does not need an additional auxiliary source and only utilizes the unit of the array. The calibration efficiency is high, but the calibration accuracy depends on the selection and recursion paths of the reference unit. The mutual coupling calibration method is based on the basic principle that mutual coupling coefficients of adjacent cells in a large array are the same, however, in the actual situation, some errors exist in some cell channels inevitably, and the errors may cause the accuracy of the final calibration to be lower than the expected value.

Based on the above considerations, since the electromagnetic environment around the middle unit of the array surface is similar, the current distribution is substantially the same, the mutual coupling has a smaller influence on the current amplitude of each middle unit, but has a larger influence on each edge unit, in this embodiment, the array surface of the active phased array is divided into a middle area 10 and an edge area 20 surrounding the middle area 10, wherein the number of the edge areas 20 may be one or more (as shown in fig. 2), and then different calibration methods are adopted according to different areas of the array surface.

S102, calibrating the antenna unit of the middle area 10 by adopting a near field scanning method;

since the mutual coupling has less influence on the middle units and the number of the antenna units in the middle area 10 is small, in this embodiment, the antenna units in the middle area 10 are calibrated by a near field scanning method, and the calibration step includes:

step 1: configuring a scanning frame for the antenna unit in the middle area 10;

the gantry is mounted flush with the array to ensure that the probe on the gantry can move directly in front of each unit in the central region 10.

Step 2: moving the probe on the scanning frame, and acquiring radiation data of the antenna unit in the middle area 10;

wherein the radiation data comprises amplitude and phase values. The probe is moved in sequence just in front of each element in the middle region 10, and the amplitude and phase values of each antenna element are acquired in sequence for calibration. While the calibrated magnitude and phase values may be stored in preparation for subsequent antenna element calibration in the edge region 20.

And step 3: a reference cell in the middle area 10 is selected, and calibration coefficients are calculated based on the reference cell and the radiation data, thereby calibrating all antenna cells in the middle area 10.

Illustratively, if the central region 10 includes M rows and N columns of antenna elements, the reference element is located in the a-th row and b-th column, and its transmitted electrical signal is represented asDetecting the transmitting signal of the m-th row and n-th column unitIn the formula (I), wherein,、respectively the amplitude and the phase of the cell,δ _mn 、σ _mn respectively an amplitude error and a phase error,f _d to calibrate the signal frequency;

comparing the transmitting signals of the m-th row and n-th column units with the transmitting signal of the reference unit to obtain a calibration coefficient. And calibrating each antenna unit in the middle area 10 one by one according to the obtained calibration coefficient.

S103, with the antenna elements in the middle area 10 after calibration as reference elements, the antenna elements in the edge area 20 are calibrated by using a cross-coupling rotation electrical vector method, and a recursive path from inside to outside is used.

For example, in this embodiment, to improve the calibration accuracy, a mutual coupling calibration method and a rotating electrical vector method are combined to perform calibration. The method comprises the following specific steps:

step 1: a first antenna unit and a second antenna unit adjacent to the reference unit simultaneously transmit signals to the reference unit;

reference element in this embodiment, the reference element is an antenna element adjacent to the edge area 20. The antenna units in the middle area 10 belong to calibrated units, the calibration accuracy is high, the antenna units close to the edge of the middle area are closer to the antenna units in the edge area 20, the mutual coupling coefficients between adjacent units are closer, and the calibration is more accurate.

Illustratively, as shown in fig. 3, the reference element m and the first antenna element n are located in the middle area 10 and are calibrated elements, and the amplitude phase is known, and the second antenna element n +1 is located in the edge area 20 and is a calibrated element. In the conventional mutual coupling calibration method, a unit located in the middle is used as a transmitting unit, units on two sides are used as receiving units, only one of the two receiving units receives a signal at a time, and the other unit is grounded. In this embodiment, the mutual coupling rotating electrical vector method is that the units on two adjacent sides are used as transmitting units, the reference unit is used as a signal receiving unit, and the two units on two sides transmit signals simultaneously, and the specific relationship is as follows:

in the formula, C_m,nRepresenting the spatial mutual coupling factor, C, between the reference element m and the first antenna element n_m,n+1Denotes the spatial mutual coupling factor, W, between the reference element m and the second antenna element n +1_MRepresents the excitation amplitude, W, of the reference cell m_nRepresenting the excitation amplitude, W, of the first antenna element n_n+1The excitation amplitude of the second antenna element n + 1.

Step 2: keeping the excitation coefficient of the first antenna element unchanged, and making the excitation phase of the second antenna element followThe phase of the second antenna element relative to the first antenna element is obtained.

When the excitation phase of the second antenna element n +1 is changed from the excitation coefficient of the first antenna element n, then C_mBut also with the phase change of the second antenna element n + 1. Based on the basic principle that mutual coupling coefficients of adjacent cells in a large array are the same, C_m,n+1=C_m,nAnd further:

wherein the content of the first and second substances,in the formula (I), wherein,、、、each represents W_m、C_m,n、W_n、W_n+1The phase of (a) is determined,represents the phase of the n +1 th unit relative to the n-th unit, and is further deduced from equation (4)：

It can be seen that the phase shift amount of the second antenna element n +1 changes, and changes in a cosine law therebetween. In formula (6)Represents the maximum value in the entire cycle, in equation (7)Representing the minimum value in the entire cycle. Delta in the formula (9)_maxIs shown asWhen, delta takes on a value. Therefore, by finding Δ_maxCan find out. The channel amplitude ratio of the second antenna element n +1 to the first antenna element n can be obtained by a mutual coupling calibration method. On the basis, the same recurrence relation with the mutual coupling calibration method can be used for obtaining the phases among the excitations of all unit channelsThe relationship, and thus the antenna elements within the border area 20, are calibrated.

Example 2

Referring to fig. 4, an embodiment of the present invention provides a system for calibrating an amplitude phase of an active phased array antenna, including an area dividing module 100: the device comprises a central area 10 and an edge area 20 surrounding the central area 10, wherein the central area is used for dividing the phased array antenna array into areas; the first calibration module 200: the antenna unit in the middle area 10 is calibrated by a near field scanning method; second calibration module 300: the calibrated antenna elements in the middle area 10 are used as reference elements for performing calibration on the antenna elements in the edge area 20 by using a mutual coupling rotation electrical vector method, and a recursion path from inside to outside is adopted.

The system provided by the embodiment of the invention can be used for executing the method described in the above embodiment, and the specific method steps are shown in embodiment 1. And will not be described in detail herein.

Example 3

An embodiment of the present invention provides an electronic device, including: at least one processor 1, at least one memory 2 and a data bus 3;

wherein, the processor 1 and the memory 2 complete the communication with each other through the data bus 3; the memory 2 stores program instructions executable by the processor 1, and the processor 1 calls the program instructions to execute the method in the embodiment, for example, to execute: s101, carrying out area division on a phased array antenna array surface, and dividing the phased array antenna array surface into a middle area 10 and an edge area 20 surrounding the middle area 10; s102, calibrating the antenna unit of the middle area 10 by adopting a near field scanning method; s103, with the antenna elements in the middle area 10 after calibration as reference elements, the antenna elements in the edge area 20 are calibrated by using a cross-coupling rotation electrical vector method, and a recursive path from inside to outside is used. .

Fig. 5 is a schematic structural block diagram of an electronic device according to an embodiment of the present application. The electronic device comprises a memory 2, a processor 1 and a data bus 3, the memory 2, the processor 1 and the data bus 3 being electrically connected to each other, directly or indirectly, to enable transmission or interaction of data. For example, the components may be electrically connected to each other via one or more communication buses or signal lines. The memory 2 can be used for storing software programs and modules, such as program instructions/modules corresponding to the electronic device provided in the embodiments of the present application, and the processor 1 executes the software programs and modules stored in the memory 2, thereby executing various functional applications and data processing. The data bus 3 can be used for signaling or data communication with other node devices.

The above-mentioned embodiments are intended to illustrate the objects, technical solutions and advantages of the present invention in further detail, and it should be understood that the above-mentioned embodiments are merely exemplary embodiments of the present invention, and are not intended to limit the scope of the present invention, and any modifications, equivalent substitutions, improvements and the like made within the spirit and principle of the present invention should be included in the scope of the present invention.