Design of Millimeter Wave Active Array Antenna Module with Embedded System and Calibration of Software Defined Radio Platform

This paper studies millimeter wave (mmWave) active array antennas by integrating antenna array, Anokiwave MMIC hardware and firmware design, ARM MCU, peripheral circuit design, etc. After the active array module is manufactured, the measured beam pattern is highly consistent with the simulation results of the ideal array antenna. Next, we propose a low-cost ITRI M3-Force software-defined-radio (SDR) platform to adjust the gain/phase parameters of the active array module. The measurement results validate that the parameter values are also very close to the gain/phase parameter values of the expensive network analyzer. Moreover, we measure the beam field pattern through the anechoic chamber. Based on the measured beam patterns, the proposed SDR platform adjustment has lower null pattern performance. Overall, the result provides practical and valuable validation to the antenna array module with the adjustment of ARM MCU and SDR platform.