Analysis and research on analog beamforming performance of phased array receiver

<p indent="0mm">To analyze and study the analog beamforming performance of phased array receivers, a microstrip antenna array of phased array receiver front-end operating at <sc>1.25 GHz</sc> is designed and fabricated, and an experimental platform for analog beamforming is constructed. Three beamforming methods, namely uniform weighting, conjugate field matching and maximum signal-to-noise ratio, are used to measure and compare the antenna array patterns. Then, the calibration method of cold and ambient temperature loads and the weights of three beamforming algorithms are selected, and the noise temperatures corresponding to the phased array receiver with complete links are calculated respectively. The measurement results indicate that the beamforming method with the maximum signal-to-noise ratio attains the lowest noise temperature, making it a more suitable beamforming method for radio astronomical receivers detecting faint signals. The above research work systematically verifies the array-level beamforming algorithm and the noise performance of the formed beam, providing crucial technical support for the future application of the phased array receiver at the reflector level of the QTT main focal position, such as array design, system integration, beamforming algorithm selection, and beam performance analysis.