A self-calibration antenna array system with moving apertures

In this paper, an antenna array system with self-calibration capability to the antenna element position errors is proposed. The essential concept of self-calibration is to detect the element positions by using near field reference sources. The estimated position information is further substituted into the beamforming process to correct the distorted pattern of the antenna array. To validate the proposed concept, a test bed with a "distorted" eight element array is set up. With the proposed calibration architecture, the estimation of the position errors is within 7% of the free space wavelength. Based on the estimation information, the array pattern can thus be synthesized.