Airborne radar interference equipment of phased array system

Abstract

The invention discloses airborne radar interference equipment of a phased array system in the technical field of radar countermeasure. The airborne radar interference equipment comprises an antenna array; a plurality of transmit-receive assemblies comprising a plurality of transmit-receive channels, wherein each transmit-receive channel comprises a numerical control attenuator and a numerical control phase shifter; the beam control unit controls the numerical control phase shifter and the numerical control attenuator; the power divider / combiner is used for combining or dividing the signals; the circulator is used for realizing one-way transmission of signals; the low-noise amplifier is used for performing low-noise amplification on the signal; the microwave frequency conversion unit is used for performing down-conversion and up-conversion processing on the signal; the digital processing unit is used for processing the intermediate frequency signal to form an interference signal; and the main control unit communicates with the digital processing unit to control an interference pattern, and communicates with the beam control unit to control beam pointing, frequency, attenuation and an enable signal of a transmit-receive assembly. The airborne radar interference equipment can realize interference signals with high power and beam scanning, and has the advantages of high equivalent radiation power and rapid interference scanning.

Description

Technical Field

[0001] The present invention relates to the field of radar countermeasure technology, and in particular to an airborne radar jamming device of a phased array system. Background Art

[0002] Radar jammers, also known as radar jammers, are electronic countermeasures used to transmit or forward electromagnetic interference waves to destroy and disrupt the work of enemy radars. Aircraft, ships, tanks, etc. are often threatened by enemy radar reconnaissance during combat operations. Using jammers to implement electronic interference on enemy radars is a common and very effective means of defense.

[0003] Existing airborne radar jammers are usually installed in limited spaces, such as the nose of a target aircraft. To ensure that the airborne radar jammers have a sufficient jamming distance, the antenna usually has strong directionality, which means that the antenna needs to be aimed at the target radar to form effective jammers.

[0004] However, due to the limited installation space, traditional radar jammers often have problems such as insufficient jamming power and inflexible beam pointing, which makes it difficult to meet the needs in complex battlefield environments. Therefore, developing an efficient and flexible airborne radar jammer has become an important research direction in current radar countermeasure technology. Summary of the invention

[0005] In order to solve or partially solve the above problems, the present application provides a phased array airborne radar jammer that can generate high-power and beam-scanning jammer signals, and has the characteristics of large equivalent radiated power and fast scanning jammers. On the battlefield, according to actual needs, the scanning coverage angle of the phased array airborne radar jammer is manually or automatically adjusted to achieve a better jammer effect.

[0006] The embodiment of the present application provides an airborne radar jammer of a phased array system, including an antenna array, a transceiver component, a beam control unit, a power splitter / combiner, a circulator, a low-noise amplifier, a microwave frequency conversion unit, a digital processing unit, and a main control unit;

[0007] Antenna array, including multiple antenna units, all antenna units are located in the same plane to form an antenna array;

[0008] There are multiple transceiver components, each of which includes multiple transceiver channels, and the transceiver channels correspond to the antenna units one by one. Each transceiver channel includes a digitally controlled attenuator and a digitally controlled phase shifter for attenuating and phase shifting the radio frequency signal;

[0009] A beam control unit that controls the digitally controlled phase shifter and digitally controlled attenuator in the transceiver assembly;

[0010] Power splitter / combiner, used to combine or split signals;

[0011] The circulator is connected between the power splitter / combiner, the low noise amplifier and the microwave frequency conversion unit to realize unidirectional transmission of signals;

[0012] A low noise amplifier, used for low noise amplification of signals;

[0013] The microwave frequency conversion unit is used to perform down-conversion and up-conversion processing on the signal, and transmit the detection information and its own phase-locked loop information to the main control unit;

[0014] The digital processing unit is used to process the intermediate frequency signal to form a radar interference signal, and send it to the microwave frequency conversion unit, and also send the processing result to the main control unit in the form of PDW;

[0015] The main control unit is connected to the digital processing unit, the low noise amplifier and the beam control unit respectively. It communicates with the digital processing unit through the XMC interface to control the interference pattern, and communicates with the beam control unit through the RS232 interface to control the beam pointing, frequency, attenuation and the enable signal of the transceiver component.

[0016] The beneficial effects of the above embodiments are: the onboard radar jammer adopts a phased array system to amplify and synthesize the jamming signal, which has low power consumption and high equivalent radiation power, and can significantly improve the jamming distance of the onboard radar jammer; at the same time, the phased array system is used to realize electronic scanning, which has a fast scanning speed and a low failure rate compared to the traditional mechanical scanning using a turntable. Therefore, the onboard radar jammer can realize high-power and beam-scanning jamming signals, and has the advantages of large equivalent radiation power and fast scanning jamming.

[0017] Based on the above embodiments, the present application can be further improved as follows:

[0018] In one embodiment of the present application, the antenna units are 64 in total, and all antenna units are in the same plane to form an 8*8 antenna array. Correspondingly, there are 8 transceiver components, each of which contains 8 transceiver channels, and the power splitter / combiner is a 1-to-8 power splitter / 8-to-1 combiner. This interference device uses an 8-channel transceiver component, and the 8 transceiver components synthesize one signal. Only one down-conversion branch and one analog-to-digital conversion circuit are required for sampling, which has the characteristics of small size and low cost.

[0019] In one embodiment of the present application, the transceiver component will send its own temperature alarm information to the beam control unit in real time, and the beam control unit is also used to receive the temperature alarm information of the transceiver component, so that the user of the interference device can intuitively understand the device status.

[0020] In one of the embodiments of the present application, in each transceiver channel of the transceiver component, the digitally controlled attenuator receives the attenuation control signal output by the beam control unit to attenuate the input RF signal; the digitally controlled phase shifter receives the phase shift control signal output by the beam control unit to shift the phase of the input RF signal.

[0021] In one of the embodiments of the present application, the microwave frequency conversion unit controls the local oscillator switching by raising / lowering the level of the corresponding position according to the frequency range set by the main control unit to achieve the output of interference signals of different frequencies.

[0022] In one of the embodiments of the present application, the external radar signal received by the antenna array is processed by the transceiver component, and then synthesized into a radio frequency signal through a power splitter / combiner, and then down-converted by a circulator and a microwave frequency conversion unit and processed by a digital processing unit to form an interference signal. Finally, it is up-converted by a microwave frequency conversion unit and amplified by a low-noise amplifier, and then branched by the power splitter / combiner to each transceiver component for amplification, attenuation, and phase shifting, and then radiated into space by the antenna array.

[0023] In one of the embodiments of the present application, the main control unit communicates with the beam control unit according to the required pointing angle, the beam control unit calculates the corresponding phase shift codeword, and controls the digitally controlled phase shifter of the transceiver component through SPI communication to achieve beam pointing control.

[0024] In one of the embodiments of the present application, the phase calibration method of the phased array airborne radar jammer is as follows: based on the original phase data, by comparing the theoretical phase difference with the measured phase value, the optimal control codeword of each channel under different attenuation and phase shift control is determined and stored in the beam control unit to achieve accurate beam synthesis.

[0025] In one of the embodiments of the present application, the phase calibration method includes a raw data recording process, which traverses all channels, attenuation positions and phase shifts, records the phase value under each combination, and forms a raw data table for subsequent phase calibration and beam pointing control. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0026] In order to more clearly illustrate the specific embodiments of the present invention or the technical solutions in the prior art, the following is a brief introduction to the drawings required for the specific embodiments or the description of the prior art. In all the drawings, similar elements or parts are generally identified by similar reference numerals. In the drawings, the elements or parts are not necessarily drawn according to the actual scale.

[0027] Figure 1 This is a block diagram of the structure of an airborne radar jammer of a phased array system in an embodiment of the present application;

[0028] Figure 2This is a block diagram of the radio frequency link of the transceiver component in the embodiment of the present application;

[0029] Figure 3 This is a working flow chart of an airborne radar jammer of a phased array system in an embodiment of the present application;

[0030] Figure 4 This is a flow chart of raw data recording in an embodiment of the present application.

[0031] Among them, 01. Antenna array, 02. Transceiver component, 03. Beam control unit, 04. 1-to-8 power splitter / 8-in-1 combiner, 05. Circulator, 06. Low noise amplifier, 07. Microwave frequency conversion unit, 08. Digital processing unit, 09. Main control unit, 10. 1-to-8 power splitter / 8-in-1 combiner 2, 11. Digitally controlled phase shifter, 12. Digitally controlled attenuator, 13. Transceiver switch 1, 14. Driver amplifier, 15. Power amplifier, 16. Transceiver switch 2, 17. Limiter, 18. Low noise amplifier 2, 19. Low noise amplifier 3. DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0032] The present invention is further explained below in conjunction with specific implementation methods. It should be understood that these implementation methods are only used to illustrate the present invention and are not used to limit the scope of the present invention. After reading the present invention, various equivalent forms of modifications to the present invention by those skilled in the art all fall within the scope defined by the claims attached to this application.

[0033] It should be noted that similar reference numerals and letters denote similar items in the following drawings, and therefore, once an item is defined in one drawing, further definition and explanation thereof is not required in subsequent drawings.

[0034] In the description of the present invention, it should be noted that the terms "first", "second", "third", etc. are only used to distinguish the description, and cannot be understood as indicating or implying relative importance; it should also be noted that, unless otherwise clearly specified and limited, the terms "set", "install", "connect", and "connect" should be understood in a broad sense, for example, it can be a mechanical connection or an electrical connection; it can be directly connected or indirectly connected through an intermediate medium, and it can be the internal connection of two components. For ordinary technicians in this field, the specific meanings of the above terms in the present invention can be understood according to specific circumstances.

[0035] Example:

[0036] like Figure 1-2As shown, an airborne radar jammer of a phased array system comprises an antenna array (01), a transceiver assembly (02), a beam control unit (03), a 1-to-8 power splitter / 8-to-1 combiner (04), a circulator (05), a low noise amplifier (06), a microwave frequency conversion unit (07), a digital processing unit (08), and a main control unit (09);

[0037] The antenna array (01) is connected to the transceiver component (02); the transceiver component (02) is respectively connected to the beam control unit (03) and the 1-to-8 power divider / 8-to-1 combiner (04); the beam control unit (03) communicates via SPI (Serial Peripheral Interface) to control the digital controlled phase shifter (11) and the digital controlled attenuator (12) in the transceiver component (02); in addition, the transceiver component (02) sends its own temperature alarm information to the beam control unit (03) in real time, so that the user of the interference device can intuitively understand the device status.

[0038] The circulator (05) is respectively connected to the 1-to-8 power divider / 8-to-1 combiner (04), the low noise amplifier (06) and the microwave frequency conversion unit (07); the microwave frequency conversion unit (07) is respectively connected to the low noise amplifier (06), the digital processing unit (08) and the main control unit (09); the microwave frequency conversion unit (07) transmits the detection information of the received signal and its own phase-locked loop information to the main control unit (07), so that the user of the interference device can intuitively understand the device status; the main control unit (07) controls the local oscillator switching of the microwave frequency conversion unit (07) by raising / lowering the level of the corresponding position according to the frequency range set by the user of the interference device.

[0039] The main control unit (09) is connected to the digital processing unit (08), the microwave frequency conversion unit (07), and the beam control unit (03) respectively. The main control unit (09) communicates with the digital processing unit (08) through an XMC (XMC-compliant mezzanine card) interface to control its interference pattern. The digital processing unit (08) sends the PDW (Pulse Description Word) of the processed signal to the main control unit (09). The main control unit (09) communicates with the beam control unit (03) through RS232 to transmit the beam pointing, frequency, attenuation and the enable signal of each transceiver component (02) to the beam control unit (03). The beam control unit (03) transmits the temperature alarm information received from the transceiver component (02) to the main control unit (09).

[0040] The antenna array (01) receives external radar signals, which are amplified, attenuated and phase-shifted by the transceiver component (02) and then synthesized into a radio frequency signal through a 1-to-8 power splitter / 8-to-1 combiner (04). The signal is sent to a microwave frequency conversion unit (07) for down-conversion after passing through a circulator (05). The intermediate frequency signal is processed by a digital processing unit (08) to form a radar interference signal, which is sent to the microwave frequency conversion unit (07) for up-conversion. The signal is amplified by a low noise amplifier (06), and then sent to a 1-to-8 power splitter / 8-to-1 combiner after passing through a circulator (05). (04) is divided into 8 signals, enters 8 transceiver components (02), is amplified, attenuated, and phase-shifted, and then radiated into space by the antenna array (01); the main control unit (09) communicates with the beam control unit (03) according to the required pointing angle, and the beam control unit (03) calculates the corresponding phase shift codeword according to the pointing angle, and controls the digital control phase shifter of the transceiver component (02) through SPI communication, so as to synthesize the required beam pointing in space; the main control unit (09) also controls the local oscillator switching of the microwave frequency conversion unit (07) according to the frequency range.

[0041] Furthermore, the antenna array (01) includes 64 antenna units, and all 64 antenna units are located in the same plane to form an 8*8 antenna array for use; there are 8 transceiver components (02), each of which includes 8 transceiver channels, for a total of 64 transceiver channels. Figure 2 As shown, each transceiver channel includes a digitally controlled phase shifter (11) and a digitally controlled attenuator (12); one end of the 1-to-8 power splitter / 8-to-1 combiner 2 (10) is connected to one of the 8 ports in the 1-to-8 power splitter / 8-to-1 combiner (04), and the other 8 ports are divided into 8 independent and identical channels. Taking one channel as an example, it is first connected to the digitally controlled phase shifter (11), the digitally controlled phase shifter (11) is connected to the digitally controlled attenuator (12), the digitally controlled attenuator is connected to the transceiver switch 1 (13), and the transceiver switch 1 (13) is divided into two channels. One of the paths is connected to a driving amplifier (14), the driving amplifier (14) is connected to a power amplifier (15), the power amplifier (15) is connected to another transceiver switch 2 (16), and the other path is connected to a low noise amplifier 3 (19), the low noise amplifier 3 (19) is connected to another low noise amplifier 2 (18), the low noise amplifier 2 (18) is connected to a limiter (17), the limiter (17) is connected to the transceiver switch 2 (16), and the transceiver switch 2 (16) is finally connected to an antenna unit in the antenna array 01.

[0042] Furthermore, the digitally controlled attenuator (12) is used to receive an attenuation control signal output by the beam control unit (03), and to attenuate the radio frequency signal input to the transceiver channel according to the attenuation control signal; and the digitally controlled phase shifter (11) is used to receive a phase shift control signal output by the beam control unit (03), and to phase shift the radio frequency signal input to the transceiver channel according to the phase shift control signal.

[0043] like Figure 3 As shown, the basic working process of this onboard radar jammer is as follows:

[0044] The antenna array (01) receives external radar signals, which are amplified, attenuated and phase-shifted by the transceiver component (02) and then synthesized into a radio frequency signal through a 1-to-8 power splitter / 8-to-1 combiner (04); the radio frequency signal is sent to a microwave frequency conversion unit (07) for down-conversion processing through a circulator (05), and the intermediate frequency signal is processed by a digital processing unit (08) to generate a radar interference signal;

[0045] After the interference signal is up-converted by the microwave frequency conversion unit (07), it is amplified by the low noise amplifier (06), and is again divided into 8 signals by the circulator (05) and the 1-to-8 power divider / 8-to-1 combiner (04), and enters each transceiver component (02) for amplification, attenuation, and phase shifting. Finally, the processed interference signal is radiated into space by the antenna array (01), forming the required beam pointing and interference effect.

[0046] The main control unit (09) adjusts parameters such as beam pointing and frequency according to user requirements, and controls the digitally controlled phase shifter and digitally controlled attenuator of the transceiver component (02) through the beam control unit (03) to achieve rapid scanning interference.

[0047] Based on the above content, the phase difference within the array and the control code of the digital controlled phase shifter are as follows:

[0048] If it is necessary to obtain the maximum beam value in the elevation and azimuth (θ, ψ) directions, the phase differences △β and △α within the array should be:

[0049] △β=2Π / λd2sinθ;

[0050] △α=2Π / λd1cosθsinψ;

[0051] Therefore, the 12G phase truth table is as follows:

[0052]

[0053]

[0054] This antenna array is 8*8. Taking the elevation azimuth (30°, 30°) as an example, the following phase truth table is listed:

[0055]

[0056] According to the 64 angle control bits of the phase shifter (0-63), the control codeword sent at this time is given:

[0057]

[0058] The corresponding relationship between the phase shift state and the phase value is defined as shown in the following table:

[0059]

[0060] Based on the 6-bit phase control bit and the formula, it can be calculated that the minimum step of the beam pointing angle is 1.6°.

[0061] Furthermore, the phase calibration method is as follows:

[0062] Original data recording process:

[0063] like Figure 4 As shown, the digital controlled attenuator and digital controlled phase shifter of the present invention are both 6-bit controlled, so the upper limit of the control codeword is 2^6-1, that is, the control range is 00-63. Assume that the number of channels tested and phase values ​​recorded is i, with a value range of 01-64; the attenuation bit is j, with a value range of 00-63; the phase shift is k, with a value range of 00-63. Initially, the phase value of the first channel is Measurement and recording, first control the attenuation of the first channel to 0, the phase shift to 0, the phase value at this time is recorded as Control the phase shift to add one bit, keep other parameters unchanged, measure and record the phase value at this time, recorded as The phase shift control code words from 00 to 63 are traversed in sequence until Then the attenuation bit is increased by 1, the phase shift codeword of the first channel is reset to zero, and the phase at this time is tested and recorded, which is recorded as In this way, the attenuation control code words from 00 to 63 are traversed until Then test the second channel, still starting from attenuation position 00 and phase shift 00, and record the phase value, recorded as Traverse all channels in this way until After all the raw data tests were completed, a total of 64*64*64=262144 raw data were recorded.

[0064] According to the beam pointing angle, the theoretical phase differences △β and △α between adjacent channels are calculated using the formula, and any channel is used as a reference to calculate the theoretical phase values ​​of the remaining 63 channels. Since the power of all channels needs to be consistent, the attenuation bits are the same and the attenuation bits are not considered. Then, from the original data of each channel, a unique original phase value closest to the theoretical phase value can be found by comparison, and the phase shift control codeword corresponding to the original phase value is the control signal of the numerically controlled phase shifter in the transceiver component (02) controlled by the beam control unit (03) through SPI communication.

[0065] The phase control codewords corresponding to each channel under all pointing angle conditions, including all frequencies and all attenuation amounts, are calculated in advance by a program, and the results are stored in a beam control unit. When the required pointing angle and output power are input, the digital processing unit simultaneously resolves the frequency according to the received radar signal and transmits the information to the main control unit, and the main control unit communicates with the beam control unit through RS232. The beam control unit uniquely retrieves the required phase control code corresponding to each channel from the stored results based on the frequency, attenuation and pointing, controls the transceiver component to perform phase and amplitude modulation on the signal, and the radio frequency signals of all channels are radiated into space from the antenna array (01) after being modulated, and beam synthesis is completed in space.

[0066] The technical solutions in the above embodiments of the present application have at least the following technical effects or advantages:

[0067] 1. The present invention adopts a phased array system to amplify and synthesize interference signals, which has low power consumption and high equivalent radiation power, and can significantly improve the interference distance of airborne radar jammers;

[0068] 2. The present invention uses a phased array system to achieve electronic scanning, which has a faster scanning speed and a lower failure rate than the traditional mechanical scanning using a turntable;

[0069] 3. The present invention uses 8-channel transceiver components, and the 8 transceiver components synthesize one signal, and only one down-conversion branch and one analog-to-digital conversion circuit are needed for sampling, which has the characteristics of small size and low cost;

[0070] 4. The present invention can accurately calibrate the antenna array error and the phase error between channels through phase calibration, improve the spatial power synthesis efficiency, and have good directivity and high grating lobe suppression;

[0071] 5. The phase control of the present invention does not adopt a real-time solution method, but all the phase control codes corresponding to all channels of all angles are solved in advance and stored in the beam control unit. Only searching is required without solution, so the response speed is faster.

[0072] Although the embodiments of the present invention have been shown and described above, it is to be understood that the above embodiments are exemplary and are not to be construed as limitations of the present invention. A person skilled in the art may change, modify, replace and vary the above embodiments within the scope of the present invention.

Claims

1. An airborne radar jammer of a phased array system, characterized in that: It includes antenna array, transceiver components, beam control unit, power splitter / combiner, circulator, low noise amplifier, microwave frequency conversion unit, digital processing unit and main control unit; The antenna array comprises a plurality of antenna units, and all the antenna units are located in the same plane to form an antenna array; There are multiple transceiver components, each of which includes multiple transceiver channels, each of which corresponds to the antenna unit one by one, and each of which includes a digitally controlled attenuator and a digitally controlled phase shifter for attenuating and phase shifting the radio frequency signal; The beam control unit controls the digitally controlled phase shifter and the digitally controlled attenuator in the transceiver assembly; The power splitter / combiner is used to combine or split signals; The circulator is connected between the power splitter / combiner, the low noise amplifier and the microwave frequency conversion unit to achieve unidirectional transmission of signals; The low noise amplifier is used to perform low noise amplification on the signal; The microwave frequency conversion unit is used to perform down-conversion and up-conversion processing on the signal, and transmit the detection information and its own phase-locked loop information to the main control unit; The digital processing unit is used to process the intermediate frequency signal to form an interference signal, and send it to the microwave frequency conversion unit, and also send the processing result to the main control unit; The main control unit is respectively connected to the digital processing unit, the low noise amplifier and the beam control unit, communicates with the digital processing unit to control the interference pattern, and communicates with the beam control unit to control the beam pointing, frequency, attenuation and the enable signal of the transceiver component.

2. The airborne radar jammer according to claim 1, characterized in that: There are 64 antenna units in total, and all antenna units are in the same plane to form an 8*8 antenna array. Correspondingly, there are 8 transceiver components, each of which includes 8 transceiver channels, and the power splitter / combiner is a 1-to-8 power splitter / 8-to-1 combiner.

3. The airborne radar jammer according to claim 1, characterized in that: The transceiver component will send its own temperature alarm information to the beam control unit in real time, and the beam control unit is also used to receive the temperature alarm information of the transceiver component.

4. The airborne radar jammer according to claim 1, characterized in that: In each transceiver channel of the transceiver assembly, the digitally controlled attenuator receives the attenuation control signal output by the beam control unit to attenuate the input radio frequency signal; The digitally controlled phase shifter receives the phase shift control signal output by the beam control unit and performs phase shift on the input radio frequency signal.

5. The airborne radar jammer according to claim 1, characterized in that: The microwave frequency conversion unit controls the switching of the local oscillator by raising / lowering the level of the corresponding position according to the frequency range set by the main control unit, so as to output interference signals of different frequencies.

6. The airborne radar jammer according to claim 1, characterized in that: The external radar signal received by the antenna array is processed by the transceiver component and then synthesized into a radio frequency signal through the power splitter / combiner, and then down-converted by the circulator and the microwave frequency conversion unit and processed by the digital processing unit to form the interference signal, and finally up-converted by the microwave frequency conversion unit and amplified by the low-noise amplifier, and then branched by the power splitter / combiner to each of the transceiver components for amplification, attenuation, and phase shifting, and then radiated into space by the antenna array.

7. The airborne radar jammer according to claim 1, characterized in that: The main control unit communicates with the beam control unit according to the required pointing angle, and the beam control unit calculates the corresponding phase shift codeword, controls the digitally controlled phase shifter of the transceiver component, and realizes the pointing control of the beam.

8. The airborne radar jammer according to claim 7, characterized in that: The phase calibration method is as follows: based on the original phase data, by comparing the theoretical phase difference with the measured phase value, the optimal control codeword of each channel under different attenuation and phase shift control is determined and stored in the beam control unit to achieve accurate beam synthesis.

9. The airborne radar jamming device according to claim 8, characterized in that: The phase calibration method includes an original data recording process, which traverses all channels, attenuation positions and phase shifts, records the phase value under each combination, and forms an original data table for subsequent phase calibration and beam pointing control.

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