A built-in performance-monitoring/fault isolation and correction (PM/FIC) system for active phased-array antennas

Lee, Kuan-Min; Chu, Ruey-Shi; Liu, Sien-Chang

doi:10.1109/8.267353

Cited by 74 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 4 publications

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“…It is critical to identify the failures in the APA efficiently, or even on-site, to make repairs easy and keep the downtime of devices low. Furthermore, failures are not only limited to antenna elements as conventional fault diagnosis techniques have focused on [2]- [19]. Faults can also happen in the front end circuits such as power amplifiers (PAs) or phase shifters, which makes the fault diagnosis a challenging multi-dimensional problem as illustrated in Fig.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…Fault detection in antenna arrays has been a research topic for many years [2]- [19]. The techniques for determining faults vary in the mathematic formulation and use different measurement methods.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…The most prevalent method used in the literature has been the rotating element electric field vector (REV) method [20], [21], hence it is used as the base comparison. The special thing with REV is that compared to other approaches for diagnosis of APAs which mostly limits malfunctions to passive antenna elements and phase errors [2]- [19], [22], [23]. The REV method does not look at passive elements but can detect amplitude, phase, and element faults with very accurate estimations hence why it is also used for calibration arrays before deployment.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…[2]- [19]. Newer research has shown that using a comparable method to REV using DNNs it is possible to reduce calculation complexity.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Robust and Efficient Fault Diagnosis of mm-Wave Active Phased Arrays Using Baseband Signal

Nielsen

Zhang

Xue

et al. 2022

IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat.

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One key communication block in 5G and 6G radios is the active phased array (APA). To ensure reliable operation, efficient and timely fault diagnosis of APAs on-site is crucial. To date, fault diagnosis has relied on measurement of frequency domain radiation patterns using costly equipment and multiple strictly controlled measurement probes, which are time-consuming, complex, and therefore infeasible for on-site deployment. This paper proposes a novel method exploiting a Deep Neural Network (DNN) tailored to extract the features hidden in the baseband in-phase and quadrature signals for classifying the different faults. It requires only a single probe in one measurement point for fast and accurate diagnosis of the faulty elements and components in APAs.Validation of the proposed method is done using a commercial 28 GHz APA. Accuracies of 99% and 80% have been demonstrated for single-and multi-element failure detection, respectively. Three different test scenarios are investigated: on-off antenna elements, phase variations, and magnitude attenuation variations. In a low signal to noise ratio of 4 dB, stable fault detection accuracy above 90% is maintained. This is all achieved with a detection time of milliseconds (e.g 6 ms), showing a high potential for on-site deployment.

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confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

“…[2]- [19]. Newer research has shown that using a comparable method to REV using DNNs it is possible to reduce calculation complexity.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Robust and Efficient Fault Diagnosis of mm-Wave Active Phased Arrays Using Baseband Signal

Nielsen

Zhang

Xue

et al. 2022

IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat.

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“…Initially the method was developed as a means to improve fault management algorithms and conduct analysis of fault isolation accuracy. The approach for the fault detection and isolation for AESA radars focuses on the RF characteristics of the system, rather than proposing a system-wide fault diagnosis and isolation methodology [2]. Array calibration is a crucial stage in the operation of an AESA radar and it is an important means of fault detection; however the AESA is only part of the whole radar system which may incorporate thermal management, electromechanical, communication and power generation subsystems.…”

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confidence: 99%

Fault Management Based on Systems Description as Directed Graph With Absolute Dependence Relations

Tigrek

2019

IEEE Systems Journal

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Fault management based on systems description as directed graph with absolute dependence relations Citation for published version (APA):Tigrek, R. (2019). Fault management based on systems description as directed graph with absolute dependence relations.Abstract-A new systems description method that utilizes graph theory for systems modeling is presented. The new method represents the system in terms of a directed graph, where each system component is represented by a vertex and dependencies between system components are represented by directed edges, also called arcs. The absolute dependence rule is introduced as the criterion for the analysis of a system into the graph representation. Together with the concept of an elementary component of a system, the proposed systems description method is applicable to a wide variety of systems for fault diagnosis, reliability engineering and other system modeling and system architecture design purposes. The application of the new method for fault diagnosis is demonstrated in this paper by developing a novel fault management algorithm, and connections with several other systems description methods are presented.

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Closed‐loop controlled microwave beamformer

Fabiani

Oliveira

Vieira

et al. 2021

Int J RF Mic Comp-Aid Eng

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This article presents the design and tests of a closed‐loop controlled microwave beamformer for phased arrays. The proposed circuit owns an internal reference signal used to automatically set predefined amplitudes and phases of the beamformer branches. This signal is applied to the branches through directional couplers with high directivity and propagates in them similar to the actual signals coming from the antenna array. As a consequence of this architecture, we found that the impedance mismatch between the antennas and the beamformer as well as the mutual coupling in the array is taken into account during calibration, resulting in a more accurate adjustment of amplitudes and phases. In this work, the influence of the mutual coupling between the antennas and the directivity of the couplers on the beamforming calibration uncertainty is also analyzed. From the derived uncertainties, the corresponding pattern degradation is evaluated by performing Monte Carlo simulations. It is shown that using couplers with low directivity together with tightly coupled arrays can produce undesirable main lobe squints of up to 4.5°, main lobe level deviations of up to 4.2 dB, and side lobe level variations of up to 24 dB. On the other hand, the use of high directivity couplers can mitigate these problems. Lastly, the validation of the designed circuit is conducted in two stages: bench tests and measurements in an anechoic chamber with an array of six printed monopoles operating at 2.2 GHz. Amplitude and phase calibration errors less than 0.5 dB and 3°, respectively, were observed in the bench tests.

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A built-in performance-monitoring/fault isolation and correction (PM/FIC) system for active phased-array antennas

Cited by 74 publications

References 4 publications

Robust and Efficient Fault Diagnosis of mm-Wave Active Phased Arrays Using Baseband Signal

Robust and Efficient Fault Diagnosis of mm-Wave Active Phased Arrays Using Baseband Signal

Fault Management Based on Systems Description as Directed Graph With Absolute Dependence Relations

Closed‐loop controlled microwave beamformer

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