A Study on Alignment of Active Phased Array Antenna Using a Fixed Probe

In this paper, we introduce a method to measure and analyze the alignment status of an active phased array antenna using a fixed probe. The characteristics of RF components in radar can change depending on the operating environment and time, and this affects the beam pattern performance. To compensate for this, it is common to perform real-time calibration. However, they introduce additional hardware complexity and increase cost. In this paper, we propose a method to fix the probe and measure the alignment status to check the changed characteristics of the RF component when real-time calibration is not possible. The proposed method has the advantage of producing similar experimental results while simplifying the measurement process and reducing the cost of fixture development compared to Point to point method, which involves moving the probe during measurement. We compared the phase data, and the pattern performance obtained by Point to point method and proposed method. As a result, we obtained similar results of about 0.04 degrees in beamwidth and within 1 dB in sidelobe level, confirming the validity of the proposed method for measuring the alignment status.