Experimental Validation of a System-Level Model for Active Arrays Under Emulated Beam Steering

This work validates a behavioral modeling and measurement-based emulation framework for active phased arrays (APAs). Dataset collection time for power amplifier (PA) modeling is minimized using fast active load–pull, while validation employs measurement-based APA emulation to replicate beam steering operating conditions. Simulations closely match the measurement-based emulation of a $2 \times 2$ patch-antenna APA for a 64-QAM orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) signal at 27 GHz across a wide range of beam angles, demonstrating the framework’s effectiveness for APA design and analysis.