Calibration and RF test of Connexion by BoeingSM airborne phased arrays

The performance of the transmit and receive phased array antennas currently used by Connexion by Boeing^SM (Connexion) to provide broadband connectivity to commercial airplanes, critically impacts the performance of the Connexion service. Specifically antenna characteristics such as EIRP levels and control accuracy (transmit antenna), G/T (receive antenna), sidelobe characteristics, spatial tracking and beam pointing accuracies, cross-polarization discrimination and out-of-band emissions (transmit antenna) all impact the operational data rates to and from the airplane. Appropriate RF calibration and test regimes are needed to provide calibration of individual array elements and confirm basic functionality for each production antenna, and to characterize the performance of the transmit and receive antenna designs in detail for assessment of system performance and to support license applications. This paper describes the approaches taken for RF calibration and test of the CBB phased array antennas, and provides some examples of test data.