A fast continuous beam steering method based on multi-channel phased array antenna

Abstract

The present invention discloses a fast continuous beam control method based on a multi-channel phased array antenna, which relates to the technical field of phased array antenna beam control. The method comprises the following steps: receiving a beam control instruction, calculating the theoretical amplitude and phase of each vector synthesizer channel, compensating and weighting the theoretical amplitude and phase of the channel to obtain the final amplitude and phase of the channel; calculating the required number M of FLASHs, and cyclically storing the calculated final amplitudes and phases of all channels in the first, second, to Mth FLASHs in a pipeline manner; reading the original voltage data of all channels by a ping-pong operation, and distributing the beam control data in a pipeline manner during the FLASH reading process. The present invention enables the phased array antenna to break free from the limitation of the mutual influence between the control timing and the communication timing, and can continuously and quickly perform beam switching.

Description

Technical Field

[0001] The present invention relates to the technical field of phased array antenna beam control, and in particular to a fast continuous beam control method based on a multi-channel phased array antenna. Background Art

[0002] Phased array antennas have recently gained widespread application in radar, communications, and other fields due to their high beam pointing accuracy and rapid beamforming. To improve beam pointing accuracy, phased array antennas typically increase the number of linear array elements, N, using a multi-channel design with hundreds or even thousands of elements. Furthermore, because signal processing systems often face coherent processing time (CPI) constraints, phased array antennas must complete beam configuration within tens or even just a few microseconds. This places significant demands on the beam steering time of phased array antennas.

[0003] First, the industry generally uses a DA chip and a vector synthesizer to configure beams. The vector synthesizer's control process is divided into the following steps: receiving beam control instructions and calculating the theoretical amplitude and phase of the channel; compensating and weighting the theoretical amplitude and phase of the channel to obtain the final amplitude and phase of the channel; obtaining quantized voltage data based on the final amplitude and phase of the channel through a lookup table; and sending the quantized voltage data to the DA chip to complete the channel amplitude and phase control of the vector synthesizer. The more channels there are, the longer it takes the vector synthesizer to complete the channel amplitude and phase control. Furthermore, due to channel differences, in order to ensure sufficient phase and amplitude control accuracy for each channel, the quantized voltage data is huge. High-speed read chips such as DDR3 / DDR4 generally have difficulty storing such a large amount of data, so the FLASH read time becomes the most direct factor affecting the beam control time.

[0004] Secondly, when the signal processor uses a DSP as the main control chip, the beam control instructions sent out will be asynchronous with the beam update signal, which will make it difficult to ensure the accuracy of the calculated beam control time advance.

[0005] Finally, to achieve multi-channel control, most current phased array antennas use a distributed control approach. This decomposes the entire antenna array into multiple subarrays (often dozens of subarrays or modules) and employs a parameterized pipeline design for channel amplitude and phase control. This, to some extent, addresses the long channel amplitude and phase control time issues associated with multi-channel antennas. However, distributed computation requires independent microprocessors (including but not limited to FPGAs and DSPs) and data storage devices for each subarray, significantly increasing costs at this stage.

[0006] Beam control instructions are often sent down via serial ports, ranging from a dozen to several hundred bytes, and the communication rate is generally no higher than 40Mbps. Therefore, communication takes tens of microseconds. During these tens of microseconds, the phased array antenna end cannot reconfigure the beam, which seriously limits the flexibility of the radar system. In addition, for high-repetition-rate radar systems, the configuration time of tens of microseconds is also unacceptable. If you want to achieve multi-beam continuous beam control, you must change the beam configuration method. With the progress of device localization, the cost of more and more devices has increased exponentially. The previous practice of exchanging resources for time can no longer meet existing needs, and distributed beam control has encountered great resistance. Summary of the Invention

[0007] The purpose of the present invention is to overcome the deficiencies of the prior art and provide a fast continuous beam control method based on a multi-channel phased array antenna.

[0008] The object of the present invention is achieved through the following technical solutions:

[0009] A fast continuous beam steering method based on a multi-channel phased array antenna, comprising:

[0010] Receive beam control instructions, calculate the theoretical amplitude and phase of each vector synthesizer channel, compensate and weight the theoretical amplitude and phase of the channel to obtain the final amplitude and phase of the channel;

[0011] Calculate the number of FLASHs required, M, and store the final amplitudes and phases of all channels calculated in a pipeline manner in the first, second, to Mth FLASHes in turn;

[0012] Ping-pong operation is used to read the raw voltage data of all channels. During the FLASH reading process, beam control data is distributed in a pipeline manner.

[0013] The ping-pong operation is used to read the raw voltage data of all channels, including:

[0014] After receiving the beam control instruction, the first, second, to Mth FLASH are read in sequence every microprocessor drive clock cycle t; after M*t time, the first group of FLASH data is read out, and after every t time, M groups of FLASH are read out in sequence, and the cycle continues until the raw voltage data of all channels are read out.

[0015] Furthermore, the number M of FLASH chips is a rounded-up value of the quotient of the FLASH chip read time and the microprocessor drive clock cycle.

[0016] Furthermore, it also includes:

[0017] After multiple beam configurations are completed within a communication cycle, the beam number is identified through the effective level length of the beam update signal, and the beam is freely switched according to the identified beam number.

[0018] Furthermore, the effective level of the beam update signal is low level effective, high level effective, or special waveform effective, and the special waveform is a waveform generated by encoding through the mechanism of an asynchronous serial port.

[0019] Furthermore, the identifying of the beam number by using the effective level length of the beam update signal includes:

[0020] Divide the effective level range [a, b] of the beam update signal into p intervals evenly, where p is the number of beams;

[0021] The beam with an effective level range of [a, a+(ba) / p] is identified as beam 1, the beam with an effective level range of [a+(ba) / p, a+2(ba) / p] is identified as beam 2, and so on to identify beam p.

[0022] Furthermore, the multi-channel phased array antenna adopts a centralized beam controller to perform beam control.

[0023] The beneficial effects of the present invention are:

[0024] 1) The present invention makes adaptive modifications to the existing signal processing process, freeing the phased array antenna from the limitations of the mutual influence between control timing and communication timing, and enabling continuous and rapid beam switching.

[0025] 2) The present invention combines existing phased array antenna test conditions to achieve multi-directional and multi-frequency testing of phased array antennas, greatly improving the testing and debugging efficiency of phased array antennas.

[0026] 3) The present invention uses centralized beam control, which can not only improve resource utilization and ensure the consistency of array control, but also greatly reduce costs. Compared with the distributed beam control method, it can better meet the needs of current engineering applications. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0027] Figure 1 A schematic diagram of ping-pong operation reading provided by an embodiment of the present invention;

[0028] Figure 2 A schematic diagram of signals for implementing beam identification and free switching according to an embodiment of the present invention;

[0029] Figure 3 This is a beam update signal diagram provided by an embodiment of the present invention. DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0030] The following will clearly and completely describe the technical solutions of the present invention in conjunction with the embodiments. Obviously, the embodiments described are only some embodiments of the present invention, not all embodiments. Based on the embodiments of the present invention, all other embodiments obtained by those skilled in the art without creative work shall fall within the scope of protection of the present invention.

[0031] See Figure 1-Figure 3 , the present invention provides a technical solution: Example

[0032] A fast continuous beam steering method based on a multi-channel phased array antenna, comprising:

[0033] Step 1: Receive beam control instructions, calculate the theoretical amplitude and phase of each vector synthesizer channel, compensate and weight the theoretical amplitude and phase of the channel to obtain the final amplitude and phase of the channel; the final amplitude and phase data of the channel is the attenuation value and phase shift value of each channel.

[0034] Step 2: Calculate the number of FLASHs required, M, and store the final amplitude and phase of all channels calculated in a pipeline manner into the first, second, to Mth FLASHes in turn;

[0035] Furthermore, the number of FLASH chips M is the rounded-up value of the quotient of the FLASH chip read time and the microprocessor drive clock cycle. The number of packets in the ping-pong operation should match the FLASH chip read time and the microprocessor drive clock.

[0036] Step 3: Use ping-pong operation to read the original voltage data of all channels. During the FLASH reading process, the beam control data is distributed in a pipeline manner.

[0037] The original voltage data is converted from the stored attenuation value and phase shift value through a table lookup. The principle is: address encoding is performed according to the attenuation value and phase shift value. For example, there are 180 phase shift values with a step of 2°, and 32 attenuation values with a step of 0.5dB. If the attenuation of a channel is 2dB and the phase shift value is 10°, the address to be taken is: (10 / 2) + 180* (2 / 0.5) = 725. The address stored is the original voltage value of the corresponding amplitude and phase.

[0038] The ping-pong operation is used to read the raw voltage data of all channels, such as Figure 1As shown, AddrMUX is an address selection module, which is connected to the interface of the external memory chip. This module will send the memory chip address to multiple groups of external memory chips according to the preset number of channel groupings, so that the entire data reading process meets the pipeline requirements; FLASH1, FLASH2, FLASH3, and FLASH4 are a group of external memory chips. After receiving the address from the address selection module, the external memory chip retrieves the data of the corresponding address and sends it to the data integration module. In addition to the basic channel amplitude and phase information, the data may also include the power-on and attenuation information of the channel. DataMUX is a data integration module. After receiving the data sent by the external memory chip, this module caches it and sends the corresponding channel data according to the channel number of the beam control module. Specifically including:

[0039] After receiving the beam control instruction, the first, second, to Mth FLASH are read in sequence every microprocessor drive clock cycle t; after M*t time, the first group of FLASH data is read out, and after every t time, M groups of FLASH are read out in sequence, and the cycle continues until the raw voltage data of all channels are read out.

[0040] In a specific embodiment, the FLASH chip read time is 95ns, and the microprocessor drive clock cycle is 25ns. The required number of FLASH elements, M, is determined to be 4. Four times the drive clock cycle is slightly longer than the FLASH chip read time, meeting system stability and redundancy requirements. Furthermore, taking a phased array antenna with N = 1152 elements and a 40MHz microprocessor clock (with a 25ns drive clock cycle) as an example, all channels are sequentially divided into four groups (i.e., 1, 5, 9...1149 as one group, 2, 6, 10...1150 as one group, 3, 7, 11...1151 as one group, and 4, 8, 12...1152 as one group), with 288 channels in each group, stored in four groups of FLASH.

[0041] After the final amplitude and phase are calculated in a pipelined manner, the four sets of FLASH are sequentially read every 25ns (corresponding to a 40MHz clock cycle). After 100ns, the first set of FLASH data is read, and the four sets of FLASH are read sequentially every 25ns thereafter, repeating this cycle until all channels' raw voltage data are complete. This means that during the FLASH read process, beam steering data can still be read and distributed in a pipelined manner, significantly improving the system's signal processing efficiency.

[0042] Ping-pong operations are used for high-speed data reading, and special beam update signals are used for multi-beam switching. This solution reduces beam control time and significantly improves beam control flexibility in multi-channel phased array antennas, achieving continuous beam control of multi-channel phased array antennas. Example

[0043] Based on the above embodiment 1, a fast continuous beam control method based on a multi-channel phased array antenna further includes:

[0044] like Figure 2 As shown, after multiple beam configurations are completed within a communication cycle, the beam number is identified by the effective level length of the beam update signal, and the beam is freely switched according to the identified beam number without waiting for data to be read again.

[0045] Specifically, identifying the beam number by using the effective level length of the beam update signal includes:

[0046] Divide the effective level range [a, b] of the beam update signal into p intervals evenly, where p is the number of beams;

[0047] The beam with an effective level range of [a, a+(ba) / p] is identified as beam 1, the beam with an effective level range of [a+(ba) / p, a+2(ba) / p] is identified as beam 2, and so on to identify beam p.

[0048] Optionally, the effective level of the beam update signal is low level effective, high level effective or special waveform effective. The beam update signal is generally a pulse synchronization signal generated by the signal processor end, and its function is to control the phased array antenna to complete the beam synchronization update. Due to the synchronization requirements of the entire system, the pulse width is often required to be less than 1us, so it can imitate the mechanism of the asynchronous serial port to perform encoding and generate a special waveform; taking high level effective as an example, if 0.1us is 1 bit, the 1us time can be divided into 10 bits, of which the first bit is the trigger bit (high level), followed by 8 coding bits, and finally 1 end bit (high level). The corresponding coding table 1 for each beam is shown in Table 1, which realizes the switching of preset beams within 1us. Compared with conventional low-level triggering or high-level triggering, this method not only meets the system synchronization requirements, but also can effectively realize fast switching between multiple beams. In order to ensure the time ambiguity between systems, the above coding can adopt one-hot code, Gray code and other coding methods, which are essentially the same as the above coding methods. The beam update signal diagram is shown in FIG. Figure 3 shown.

[0049] Table 1: Coding table for each beam

[0050] Beam type Pulse coding Beam 1 0x01 Beam 2 0x02 …… …… Beam 255 0xFF

[0051] By increasing the number of pins for the beam update signal and setting the effective time of high and low levels or special waveforms, multi-beam switching can be completed without continuously sending beam control instructions. This saves communication time on the one hand and, on the other hand, allows beam cycle control or rapid frequency switching as needed, greatly improving system efficiency. Example

[0052] Based on the above-mentioned embodiment 1 or 2, a fast continuous beam control method based on a multi-channel phased array antenna further includes: the multi-channel phased array antenna adopts a centralized beam controller to perform beam control.

[0053] Centralized beam control can not only improve resource utilization and ensure array control consistency, but also greatly reduce costs. Compared with distributed beam control, it can better meet the needs of current engineering applications.

[0054] The foregoing description is merely a preferred embodiment of the present invention. It should be understood that the present invention is not limited to the form disclosed herein and should not be construed as excluding other embodiments. Rather, the present invention can be used in various other combinations, modifications, and environments and can be modified within the scope of the concept described herein through the above teachings or techniques or knowledge in the relevant field. Modifications and variations made by those skilled in the art that do not depart from the spirit and scope of the present invention are intended to be protected by the appended claims.

Claims

1. A fast continuous beam steering method based on a multi-channel phased array antenna, characterized by: include: Receive beam control instructions, calculate the theoretical amplitude and phase of each vector synthesizer channel, compensate and weight the theoretical amplitude and phase of the channel to obtain the final amplitude and phase of the channel; Calculate the number of FLASHs required, M, and store the final amplitudes and phases of all channels calculated in a pipeline manner in the first, second, to Mth FLASHes in turn; Ping-pong operation is used to read the raw voltage data of all channels. During the FLASH reading process, beam control data is distributed in a pipeline manner. The ping-pong operation is used to read the raw voltage data of all channels, including: After receiving the beam control instruction, the 1st, 2nd, to Mth FLASH are read in sequence every microprocessor driving clock cycle t; After M*t time, the first set of FLASH data is read out, and then after every t time, M sets of FLASH are read out in sequence, and the cycle continues until all channels’ raw voltage data are read out. The multi-channel phased array antenna adopts a centralized beam controller to perform beam control.

2. The method for rapid continuous beam steering based on a multi-channel phased array antenna according to claim 1, characterized in that: The number M of FLASH chips is the rounded-up value of the quotient of the FLASH chip read time and the microprocessor drive clock cycle.

3. The rapid continuous beam control method based on a multi-channel phased array antenna according to claim 1, characterized in that , also includes: After multiple beam configurations are completed within a communication cycle, the beam number is identified through the effective level length of the beam update signal, and the beam is freely switched according to the identified beam number.

4. The method for rapid continuous beam steering based on a multi-channel phased array antenna according to claim 3, characterized in that: The effective level of the beam update signal is low level effective, high level effective or special waveform effective, and the special waveform is a waveform generated by encoding through the mechanism of the asynchronous serial port.

5. The method for rapid continuous beam control based on a multi-channel phased array antenna according to claim 3, characterized in that: The identifying of the beam number by using the effective level length of the beam update signal includes: Divide the effective level range [a, b] of the beam update signal into p intervals on average, where p is the number of beams; The beam with an effective level range of [a, a+(ba) / p] is identified as beam 1, the beam with an effective level range of [a+(ba) / p, a+2(ba) / p] is identified as beam 2, and so on to identify beam p.

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