Patent attributes
A modular antenna system and a method for signal processing using the modular antenna system are provided to overcome the missing scalability of conventional antenna arrays and improve the overall antenna array performance as well as facilitate individually replacing defective or not reliably operating radio-units or radio-subunits in modular antenna array systems and provide a calibration procedure which can be adapted to a scalable antenna array. The modular antenna system includes a base station, and at least one radio-unit comprising at least two radio-subunits. Each radio-subunit includes a radio-module and an antenna-module. The radio-module includes a digital signal-processing unit, at least a transceiver, a front-end and a power amplifier. The radio-subunits provide an identical architecture and are modularly connected together via a connector interface and each radio-subunit has an own IQ-input and an own IQ-output.