In view of the variable curvature radius of the platform and different orientations of elements

array manifold model for arbitrary 3D conformal array is established.The equivalence of the array mutual coupling and angularly dependent gain and phase uncertainties is developed.With the help of some carry-on instrumental sensors and some time-disjoint pilot sources in unknown directions

Instrumental Sensors Method(ISM)is proposed for the mutual coupling calibration of conformal array antenna.ISM is able to achieve a favorable mutual coupling auto-calibration just using a one-dimensional search and solution of linear system of equations

with no high-dimensional nonlinear search and convergence burden involved.Simulation results are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness and behavior of the proposed ISM.