An External Calibration Scheme for DBF Antenna Arrays

A novel calibration scheme is presented that is especially suited for complex digital beamforming (DBF) antenna arrays at millimeter-wave frequencies. Calibration data is extracted by sampling the field of each radiator at certain locations near the array by fixed probe antennas. A scalable calibration model for evaluation of the measured data is described. First tests are performed on a small passive array representing a unit cell of larger arrays. The calibration scheme is subsequently applied to and tested on a 64 element DBF transmit antenna array.