Calibration of Antennas During Construction or Expansion of Radio Arrays

The calibration of radio antenna performance is a well understood process, especially for single large-diameter antennas. However, the measurement of efficiency, optimal focus, pointing corrections, system temperature, and other parameters as functions of observing frequency, antenna elevation and azimuth, temperature, and wind velocity can be time-consuming. For any future arrays consisting of very large numbers of small antennas, it will be necessary to minimize the time spent calibrating each antenna. This paper considers ways to speed up the calibration of antennas being added to an existing array by taking advantage of interferometer measurements and script-based automation.