In-Flight Calibration Method for Direction Finding of Communication Signals based on Aviation Systems

Abstract

Direction-finding equipment with multiple antennas are used to estimate the direction of a signal emitted by a source; they can be used to rescue a victim or locate a specified source. During direction finding, reflection waves are present and signal distortion is observed depending on the external shape and material of a system that incorporates the direction-finding equipment and multiple antennas. Therefore, to accurately estimate the azimuth of the signal source and develop the direction-finding equipment, a calibration should be performed to reflect the influence of the antenna arrangement(layout) and system contour. In this paper, we describe an in-flight calibration method to develop direction-finding equipment to locate communication signals using an aviation system, and we analyze the direction-finding performance when applying phase calibration data obtained through the in-flight calibration.