All-metal ultra-wideband phased array antenna

Abstract

The application discloses a kind of full metal ultra-wideband phased array antennas, belong to antenna engineering technical field.It includes metal floor and metal plate, metal plate is located metal floor upper surface, and both are perpendicular to each other;Metal plate both sides middle position is also equipped with and closely coupled control boss;Every coupling control boss is a rectangular strip-shaped protrusion, and rectangular strip-shaped protrusion is perpendicular to metal floor;The outside of every coupling control boss is also equipped with and its corresponding dipole arm;The top of two dipole arms is formed by corresponding loading block and the top of coupling control boss Capacitance structure;One dipole arm is short-circuit connection with metal floor, and the bottom end of another dipole arm is tapered structure and forms coaxial feed port with the metal floor directly below it.The application can be used to optimize array unit broadband operating characteristics and bear large feed power, and the array with optimized design has the ability of wide-angle scanning.

Description

Technical Field

[0001] This invention belongs to the field of antenna engineering technology, and relates to a high-power capacity all-metal ultra-wideband phased array antenna, and particularly to a novel all-metal array unit structure design. Background Technology

[0002] With the continuous development of radar and communication technologies, single antennas are insufficient to meet the performance requirements of radar and communication systems. Phased array antennas, as the name suggests, are array antennas containing multiple elements arranged in a specific manner. Phased control refers to controlling the feed phase of each antenna element in the array in a specific way to obtain a radiation beam in a specified direction. If both the feed amplitude and phase of the antenna elements are controlled simultaneously, effects such as suppressing sidelobes, specifying radiation pattern shapes, or nulls can be achieved. Because phased array antennas can transmit and receive electromagnetic waves on demand in the frequency and spatial domains, they have extremely important application value in military / civilian radar, communication, and other wireless systems. Phased array antennas with wide-angle scanning capabilities can significantly reduce system cost and size, reduce system complexity, and improve overall system performance in full / quasi-upper half-space reconnaissance radar and communication systems.

[0003] The performance of a phased array antenna is largely determined by the performance of its array elements; therefore, the antenna elements play a decisive role in the performance of the phased array. For some broadband array elements, their size is often too large to meet the size requirements of phased array antennas, making wide-angle scanning impossible. To overcome these problems of excessively large element size and narrow scanning range, and considering that the power capacity of phased array antennas based on printed circuit board technology is often severely limited, making them unsuitable for high-power transmission systems, a solution is needed.

[0004] Strongly coupled antenna arrays are easier to achieve broadband operation than conventional antenna arrays due to the mutual coupling between elements. However, when no resistive material is loaded, the fluctuation of the active input impedance is usually large, which severely limits the maximum operating bandwidth. According to literature review, there are currently no research reports on achieving a 5.1 octave band operating bandwidth for all-metal strongly coupled antenna arrays without loading any resistive material.

[0005] The profile of strongly coupled ultra-wideband (UWB) antenna arrays is crucial for their practical engineering applications. While strongly coupled UWB antenna arrays offer significant advantages in profile height compared to traditional UWB arrays (such as the Vivaldi array), further reductions in profile height are necessary in lower operating frequency bands to truly meet certain practical application requirements. However, the profile height of a strongly coupled UWB antenna array is directly proportional to the wavelength; reducing the profile often leads to a deterioration in impedance matching at the low end of the operating band. Furthermore, a low profile design leaves insufficient physical space for designing a high-performance feed balun. On the other hand, a low profile design also places higher demands on the design and performance of the wide-angle impedance matching layer, sometimes even necessitating its elimination to meet the profile height requirements.

[0006] Therefore, it can be seen that to achieve ultra-wideband scanning of low-profile strongly coupled antenna arrays, it is necessary to solve the following problems of all-metal unit structures: active impedance matching of units in the ultra-wideband range, structural design under mechanical performance constraints, and feeding technology of ultra-wideband high-power all-metal units. Solving these problems will significantly reduce the physical space requirements of strongly coupled ultra-wideband antenna arrays on the carrier platform and expand their potential application range. Summary of the Invention

[0007] The purpose of this invention is to propose a low-profile all-metal phased array antenna element structure based on strong coupling effect, which realizes a miniaturized element with dual-polarization or single-polarization, high power capacity, and ultra-wideband, and can be used in the design of phased array antennas required by various wireless systems such as radar, communication, and electronic warfare.

[0008] The technical solution of this invention is implemented as follows:

[0009] An all-metal ultra-wideband phased array antenna includes a metal ground plane 3 and a metal plate 1; the metal plate is located on the upper surface of the metal ground plane and the two are perpendicular to each other; a coupling control protrusion is provided at the middle position of both sides of the metal plate; each coupling control protrusion is a rectangular strip protrusion and the rectangular strip protrusion is perpendicular to the metal ground plane.

[0010] Each coupling control boss is also provided with a corresponding dipole arm on its outer side; the two dipole arms are irregular plate-like structures of different shapes, and each dipole arm is perpendicular to the metal plate and the metal ground plate; the top of the two dipole arms forms a capacitor structure with the top of the coupling control boss through the corresponding loading block, and the loading block and the top of the coupling control boss have a distance greater than zero; one dipole arm is short-circuited to the metal ground plate, and the bottom end of the other dipole arm is a tapered structure and forms a coaxial feed port with the metal ground plate directly below it.

[0011] Furthermore, the dipole arm and the metal plate are not in contact.

[0012] Furthermore, the loading block has a symmetrical stepped structure, which is used to adjust the gap size between the dipole arm and the metal plate and to realize the coupling capacitance between the control units.

[0013] Furthermore, the coupling control boss is used to control the coupling degree between two adjacent dipole arms.

[0014] Furthermore, the two dipole arms have different input impedances, which are used to offset part of the reactive component caused by the common-mode current in the unbalanced feed structure.

[0015] Compared with the prior art, the advantages of the present invention are as follows:

[0016] This invention can be used to optimize the broadband operating characteristics of array elements and withstand large feed power, while enabling the antenna array to perform large-angle beam scanning. In addition, it can achieve single-polarization or dual-polarization radiation according to the system's requirements for transmit beam polarization. Attached Figure Description

[0017] Figure 1 This is a schematic diagram of the structure of an embodiment of the present invention.

[0018] Figure 2 for Figure 1 The front view.

[0019] Figure 3 for Figure 1 The left view.

[0020] Figure 4 for Figure 1 Top view.

[0021] Figure 5 This refers to the active standing wave ratio (VSWR) during beam scanning of the antenna element in an embodiment of the present invention.

[0022] Figure 6 This is a gain diagram of the antenna element in an embodiment of the present invention.

[0023] Figure 7 This is the antenna element radiation pattern at 100MHz in an embodiment of the present invention.

[0024] Figure 8 This is the antenna element radiation pattern at 300MHz in an embodiment of the present invention.

[0025] Figure 9 This is the antenna element radiation pattern at 500MHz in an embodiment of the present invention. Detailed Implementation

[0026] The present invention will now be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings and specific embodiments.

[0027] An all-metal ultra-wideband phased array antenna includes a metal ground plane 3 and a metal plate 1; the metal plate is located on the upper surface of the metal ground plane and the two are perpendicular to each other; a coupling control protrusion is provided at the middle position of both sides of the metal plate; each coupling control protrusion is a rectangular strip protrusion and the rectangular strip protrusion is perpendicular to the metal ground plane.

[0028] Each coupling control boss is also provided with a corresponding dipole arm on its outer side; the two dipole arms are irregular plate-like structures of different shapes, and each dipole arm is perpendicular to the metal plate and the metal ground plate; the top of the two dipole arms forms a capacitor structure with the top of the coupling control boss through the corresponding loading block, and the loading block and the top of the coupling control boss have a distance greater than zero; one dipole arm is short-circuited to the metal ground plate, and the bottom end of the other dipole arm is a tapered structure and forms a coaxial feed port with the metal ground plate directly below it.

[0029] Furthermore, the dipole arm and the metal plate are not in contact.

[0030] Furthermore, the loading block has a symmetrical stepped structure, which is used to adjust the gap size between the dipole arm and the metal plate and to realize the coupling capacitance between the control units.

[0031] Furthermore, the coupling control boss is used to control the coupling degree between two adjacent dipole arms.

[0032] Furthermore, the two dipole arms have different input impedances, which are used to offset part of the reactive component caused by the common-mode current in the unbalanced feed structure.

[0033] The following is a more specific example:

[0034] This embodiment includes: a metal floor, a feed arm and a short-circuit arm of a strongly coupled dipole, a feed connector, and a metal floor or metal step.

[0035] The low-profile all-metal phased array antenna element structure improves the coupling between different dipole antenna elements by introducing a metal ground plane or metal step structure, and achieves impedance matching characteristics and beam scanning characteristics in the ultra-wideband range based on this strong coupling effect.

[0036] The low-profile all-metal single-polarization phased array antenna structure uses a lightweight metal plate or sheet to separate two adjacent dipole arms. The metal plate or sheet is connected to a metal ground plane. A metal strip protrusion is introduced on each side of the metal plate or sheet to adjust the coupling between the two adjacent dipole arms, so as to obtain a larger operating bandwidth and higher power capacity.

[0037] The low-profile all-metal single-polarization phased array antenna element structure adopts an asymmetric dipole metal arm structure, which enables it to be better matched with the asymmetric feed structure.

[0038] The low-profile all-metal single-polarization phased array antenna unit structure has an optimized metal step structure loaded at the top of each dipole arm. This structure is used to adjust the gap size between the dipole arm and the metal plate or sheet, thereby controlling the coupling capacitance between units and further optimizing the unit's operating bandwidth and power capacity.

[0039] Reference Figures 1 to 4 This embodiment is a novel high-power capacity, low-profile, all-metal single-polarization phased array antenna unit structure, including a metal ground plane 3, a metal plate 1 perpendicular to the metal ground plane 3, an asymmetric dipole arm, a short-circuit arm 201 and a feed arm 202, a coupling control boss 4, a special junction structure loaded on the asymmetric dipole arm, loading blocks 501 and 502, and a coaxial feed port 6.

[0040] In this embodiment, the asymmetrical dipole arms, short-circuit arm 201 and feed arm 202 have slightly different shapes. From the reference plane of the coaxial feed port 6, the input impedances of short-circuit arm 201 and feed arm 202 are different, which can offset part of the reactance component caused by the common mode current in the unbalanced feed structure.

[0041] In this embodiment, the special structure loaded on the asymmetric dipole arm, the loading blocks 501 and 502, and the surfaces parallel to the metal plate 1 can be flexibly adjusted to regulate the size of this equivalent capacitance. At the same time, the coupling control boss 4 can play a role in finely controlling the coupling amount and coupling path.

[0042] This example uses an antenna array operating between 100 and 520 MHz as an example. Figure 5 The active impedance matching characteristics of the array single-polarized antenna element described in this invention are presented. It can be seen that the active VSWR of this element is less than 2.5 across the entire 100 to 520 MHz frequency band within a 60-degree scanning range.

[0043] Figure 6 This represents the gain of the array single-polarized antenna element described in this invention. The gain of this antenna element ranges from -9.5 to 5.2 dBi across the entire operating frequency band. Because no dielectric or lossy material is introduced into this antenna, it boasts high efficiency and large power capacity. Furthermore, since this antenna element is an all-metal structure, it can be easily scaled down to higher or lower operating frequency bands.

[0044] Figures 7 to 9The diagram shows the radiation patterns of the single-polarized antenna element described in this invention at 100MHz, 300MHz, and 500MHz. It can be seen that this element has extremely high polarization purity, with cross-polarization levels below -60dB across the entire frequency band. Simultaneously, the element also has a wide beamwidth, making it suitable for assembling arrays of different sizes.

[0045] The specific embodiments given above are merely preferred examples of the optimization method for the array antenna element. This method is not limited to this type of antenna and is not intended to limit the present invention. Any modifications, equivalent substitutions, and improvements made within the spirit and principles of the present invention should be included within the scope of protection of the present invention.

Claims

1. An all-metal ultra-wideband phased array antenna comprising a metal floor (3), characterized in that, Also include a metal plate (1); the metal plate is located on the metal floor surface, and both are perpendicular to each other; the metal plate both sides of the middle position is also provided with the close coupling control boss; each coupling control boss is a rectangular strip-shaped convex, and the rectangular strip-shaped convex is perpendicular to the metal floor; The outer side of each coupling control boss is also provided with a corresponding dipole arm; two dipole arms are different shaped plate structures, each dipole arm is perpendicular to the metal plate and the metal floor; the top end of the two dipole arms is connected with the top end of the coupling control boss through the corresponding loading block to form a capacitor structure, and the loading block and the top end of the coupling control boss have a distance greater than zero; One of the dipole arms is short-circuit connected with the metal floor, and the other dipole arm has a tapered structure at the bottom end and forms a coaxial feed port with the metal floor directly below.

2. The all-metal ultrawideband phased array antenna of claim 1, wherein, The dipole arm and the metal plate are not in contact.

3. The all-metal ultrawide-band phased array antenna according to claim 1, wherein, The loading block is a symmetrical step structure, which is used to adjust the gap size between the dipole arm and the metal plate and realize the coupling capacitance between the control units.

4. The all-metal ultrawide-band phased array antenna according to claim 1, wherein, The coupling control boss is used to adjust the coupling degree between the two adjacent dipole arms.

5. The all-metal ultrawide-band phased array antenna according to claim 1, wherein, The two dipole arms are respectively a feed arm and a short-circuit arm, and the input impedance of the feed arm and the short-circuit arm is different, so as to offset the reactance component caused by the common-mode current in the structure of a part of unbalanced feed.

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