A Novel Method for Calibrating Deployed Active Antenna Arrays

This study proposes a simple self-calibration system that involves applying the phase-match method (PMM) in the far-field calibration of a deployed active array. When the proposed self-calibration approach is employed, an antenna array system can be maintained at a ground-based station, and no expensive and complex test equipment is required. An EM-based simulation method was applied to validate the proposed method numerically. Finally, an eight-element microstrip array operating at 3.6 GHz was designed to study the proposed method experimentally. The measured results validated the effectiveness of the proposed method in calibrating deployed antenna array systems.