384 results about "Antenna aperture" patented technology

A shared beamformer flexibly allocates beams among phased array antenna apertures of a satellite (or other type of platform). By sharing the beamformer among the apertures, if one aperture is not providing useful coverage (due to orientation, traffic volume, signal frequency, signal polarization, etc.), the beams may be reallocated to one or more other apertures that are providing useful coverage. To share the beamformer among the phased array antenna apertures, a selector network (e.g., one or more switches) is used to select which particular apertures are to send or receive signals.

A radar system having orthogonal antenna apertures is disclosed. The invention further relates to an antenna system wherein the orthogonal apertures comprise at least one transmit aperture and at least one receive aperture. The cross-product of the transmit and receive apertures provides a narrow spot beam and resulting high resolution image. An embodiment of the invention discloses orthogonal linear arrays, comprising at least one electronically scanned transmit linear array and at least one electronically scanned receive linear array. The design of this orthogonal linear array system produces comparable performance, clutter and sidelobe structure at a fraction of the cost of conventional 2D filled array antenna systems.

The invention discloses a microwave antenna and an outer cover thereof. The outer cover is a rotational symmetric element which comprises a plurality of homocentrically arranged parts as below: a compensation part arranged at the middle of the outer cover and used for compensating the phase delay of the electric field distribution at the middle of an antenna aperture surface caused by the shielding of a feed source, a main reflection part arranged at the periphery of the compensation part and used for reflecting the electromagnetic wave emitted from the microwave antenna feed source to a specific direction deviating from the feed source, and an assistant reflection part arranged at the periphery of the main reflection part and used for carrying out reflex bunching on the edge diffraction electromagnetic wave of the microwave antenna. All the parts of the outer cover are especially designed and shaped, therefore the microwave antenna has the characteristics of excellent electrical properties, stable structure, low cost and the like.

A microwave antenna radome used for covering a microwave antenna and of rotatablely symmetrical includes the following components all of which are arranged concentrically; a compensation portion located at a central portion of the radome and used for compensating phase delay of electrical field at the central portion of an antenna aperture plane caused by blocking of a feed; a main reflective portion located on a periphery of the compensation portion and used for reflecting electromagnetic wave originating from the feed of the microwave antenna at a specific direction biased from the feed; and an auxiliary reflective portion located on a periphery of the main reflective portion and used for bunching and reflecting diffraction electromagnetic wave at edge of the microwave antenna. All components of the radome are specifically shaped. The microwave antenna thus formed has good electrical performance, stable structure and low cost.

The invention relates to a small (0.5 wavelength or less) adaptable antenna system. In particular it relates to the use of loaded parasitic components in the antenna aperture for the purpose of controlling the RF properties of the antenna. Such an antenna system is here referred to as a controlled parasitic antenna (CPA). Parasitic elements within the radiating aperture are terminated by active (controllable) impedance devices. A feedback and control subsystem periodically adjusts the impedance characteristics of these devices based on some observed metric of the received waveform. Such antenna systems can provide multifunctionality within a single aperture and / or mitigate problems associated with the reception of an interfering signal (or signals) or multi-path effects. Such antenna systems are particularly suitable to a situation where an aperture size is desired that is too small for the use of an adaptive phased array.

An antenna apparatus and method for use of the same are disclosed herein. In one embodiment, the antenna comprises a single physical antenna aperture having at least two spatially interleaved antenna arrays of antenna elements, the antenna arrays being operable independently and simultaneously at distinct frequency bands.

A polygonal cylindrically shaped phased array antenna forming a radar has an active aperture that focuses in any of one or more angular azimuth directions without inertia. It further includes adjacent multiple similar polygonal staves joined along their vertical edges to form a right regular polygonal cylinder. Each stave is further decomposed into flat panels, wherein each panel has a plurality of antenna elements positioned in a regular rectangular or triangular lattice. Each panel contains a beam forming network that electronically forms and steers an electromagnetic beam for purposes of transmission and subsequent reception. The panels optionally may operate as autonomous radars which when coherently combined form multiple larger antenna apertures, each capable of operating autonomously. A switching network allows transmit power and all requisite radar and control signals to be sent to and received from a selected set of panels anywhere on the polygonal cylinder.

A radar system having orthogonal antenna apertures is disclosed. The invention further relates to an antenna system wherein the orthogonal apertures comprise at least one transmit aperture and at least one receive aperture. The cross-product of the transmit and receive apertures provides a narrow spot beam and resulting high resolution image. An embodiment of the invention discloses orthogonal linear arrays, comprising at least one electronically scanned transmit linear array and at least one electronically scanned receive linear array. The design of this orthogonal linear array system produces comparable performance, clutter and sidelobe structure at a fraction of the cost of conventional 2D filled array antenna systems.

A shared beamformer flexibly allocates beams among phased array antenna apertures of a satellite (or other type of platform). By sharing the beamformer among the apertures, if one aperture is not providing useful coverage (due to orientation, traffic volume, signal frequency, signal polarization, etc.), the beams may be reallocated to one or more other apertures that are providing useful coverage. To share the beamformer among the phased array antenna apertures, a selector network (e.g., one or more switches) is used to select which particular apertures are to send or receive signals.

A method and apparatus for impedance matching for an antenna aperture are described. In one embodiment, the antenna comprises an antenna aperture having at least one array of antenna elements operable to radiate radio frequency (RF) energy and an integrated composite stack structure coupled to the antenna aperture. The integrated composite stack structure includes a wide angle impedance matching network to provide impedance matching between the antenna aperture and free space and also puts dipole loading on antenna elements.

A method and apparatus for aperture segmentation are disclosed. In one embodiment, the antenna comprises an antenna feed to input a cylindrical feed wave and a physical antenna aperture coupled to the antenna feed and comprising a plurality of segments having antenna elements that form a plurality of closed concentric rings of antenna elements when combined, where the plurality of concentric rings are concentric with respect to the antenna feed.

A antenna aperture having electromagnetic radiating elements embedded in structural wall portions of a honeycomb-like core. Independent wall sections each having a plurality electromagnetic radiating elements are formed into the honeycomb-like core. Feed portions of each radiating element form teeth that are copper plated before being assembled onto a back skin panel. Each of the teeth are then generally machined flush with a surface of the back skin to present electrical contact pads which enable electrical coupling to each of the radiating elements by an external antenna electronics board.

The invention discloses an elastic-hinge-driven double-layer annular truss antenna mechanism, relates to an unfoldable antenna mechanism and aims to solve the problems that an existing monocyclic annular truss mechanism is decreased in rigidity along with increase of the antenna aperture and thereby cannot achieve the use stiffness requirements, and an existing annular truss antenna is complex in driving mechanism, large in mechanism weight and quite low in unfolding reliability. The elastic-hinge-driven double-layer annular truss antenna mechanism comprises inner-ring annular truss components, outer-ring annular truss components, a plurality of inner-and-outer-ring connection truss components and a plurality of inhaul cable components, each of the inner-ring annular truss components and the outer-ring annular truss components comprises a plurality of elastic-hinge-driven foldable and unfoldable units and a plurality of elastic-hinge-driven transition foldable and unfoldable components, each two adjacent elastic-hinge-driven foldable and unfoldable units are connected through the corresponding elastic-hinge-driven transition foldable and unfoldable component, and four corresponding vertex angles between each inner-ring annular truss component and the corresponding outer-ring annular truss component are supported and are connected rotatably by one inner-and-outer-ring connection truss component. The elastic-hinge-driven double-layer annular truss antenna mechanism is used for satellites, space stations and space probes.

A beamforming method based on broadband antenna is provided, comprising: detecting the frequency of input signals of an antenna; determining the effective antenna aperture between elements of the antenna array according to the detected frequency; computing the weight vector of each element of the antenna array to the signals according to the determined effective antenna aperture and the transmission function of the antenna array; multiplying the input signals with said weight vector of each element of the antenna array to the signals, combining them and outputting the beam signals. By performing weighting operation respectively to the input signals after a series of delaying operation, and then combining them, the single digital signals can be acquired. This effectively reduces the odds produced by the antenna between transmitting signals and receiving signals, and thus dramatically improves the communication quality.

A phased array antenna aperture able to form a structural, load bearing portion of another structure, for example, a portion of a mobile platform. The antenna aperture is formed with a plurality of radiating elements sandwiched between prepreg fabric plies to form independent wall sections having a plurality of electromagnetic radiating elements embedded therein. The wall sections are secured in a honeycomb arrangement to form an array of cells of radiating elements. The manufacturing methods described herein enable arrays of widely varying sizes and shapes to be created and used as structural, load bearing portions of a wing, fuselage, door panel or other area of a mobile platform. The antenna aperture is lightweight because it does not include the weight of parasitic support components typically required in the construction of phased array antenna apertures.

Monitoring and compensating for environmental and other conditions affecting antenna elements of an antenna is described. The conditions may affect radio frequency (RF) liquid crystal of the antenna elements. In one embodiment, the antenna comprises a physical antenna aperture having an array of surface scattering antenna elements that are controlled and operable together to form a beam for the frequency band for use in holographic beam steering and a compensation controller to perform compensation on the antenna elements based on monitored antenna conditions.

The present disclosure describes the system and methods for providing broadband internet access to homes and enterprises using a network of aerial platforms such as drones / UAVs / balloons. Drones form and point beams toward ground terminals in different areas in a space division multiple access scheme. Ground terminals search for the drone from which they receive the strongest signals. Drone and ground terminals comprise of methods and systems to calibrate receive and transmit antenna elements. Drone radio sub-system keeps track of the drone's position and orientation changes and adjust drone's antenna beam accordingly to point to the same location on the ground as the drone moves. Depending on the changes in drone's position and orientation, the drone radio subsystem may switch the antenna aperture and / or the antenna fixture that is used to form a beam toward a specific ground terminal. Drones communicate with the terminals using a space and time division multiple access scheme.

Embodiments of the invention relate to beamforming antennas such as can be used in space division multiplexing systems. Space division multiplexing can be used to increase data capacity in wireless networks by enabling different base stations to transmit signals within the same frequency band. Each antenna beam can potentially be used to establish a communication link within an area of wireless coverage, and other communication links established on other antenna beams then represent interference to that user. In order to reduce interference, narrow beamwidths are desirable. These are typically achieved by increasing the aperture of the antenna in the azimuth plane, and in arrangements that require finely divided angular sectors, a greater number of antennas will be required to give three hundred and sixty degree coverage. As a result, there is potentially a large increase in the total surface area of antennas which is undesirable, as it leads to increased wind loading of an antenna tower. Embodiments of the invention provide an arrangement in which data are transmitted from a first transmitter to a first receiver using a first antenna beam, and data are transmitted from a second transmitter to a second receiver using a second antenna beam. The first antenna beam is formed by splitting the signal from the first transmitter into two parts with a first phase relationship between the parts, each part being connected to an antenna. A second antenna beam is formed by splitting the signal from the second transmitter into two parts with a second phase relationship between the parts, each part being connected to one of the two antennas. An advantage of embodiments of the invention is that data can be transmitted from different transmitters at the same frequency without interference, while presenting a smaller antenna aperture than is required with conventional systems.

A conformal, load bearing, phased array antenna system having a plurality of adjacently positioned antenna aperture sections that collectively form a single, enlarged antenna aperture. The aperture sections are each formed by intersecting wall panels that form a honeycomb-like core having a plurality of electromagnetic radiating elements embedded in the wall panels that form the core. The aperture wall panels are assembled onto a single, multi-faceted back skin, bonded thereto, and then machined to produce a desired surface contour. A radome formed by a single piece of composite material is then bonded to the contoured surface. Antenna electronics printed wiring boards are also bonded to an opposite side of the back skin. The contour is selected to match a mold line of a surface into which the antenna system is installed. The antenna is able to form an integral, load bearing portion of the structure into which it is installed.

A system and method for prescribing an amplitude distribution to a leaky-wave microstrip antenna having an array of radiating cells. The leaky-wave microstrip antenna includes a grounded element, a dielectric member coupled to the grounded element and a top conducting strip coupled to the dielectric member, the conducting strip including a first and second non-radiating conducting strip and a plurality of radiating cells. This distribution requires that the microstrip antenna possess a variable leakage-constant profile along its length, and is chosen so as to yield an H-plane power-gain pattern having low sidelobes. The leakage-constant profile is achieved by configuring the width and inter-cell spacing of the antenna radiating cells and keeping the phase constant fixed. The length or loading of the radiating cells may also be manipulated to achieve the desired leakage constant profile. This results in the desired distribution along the antenna's aperture and yields a power-gain pattern with low sidelobes. The antenna is excited by two equal-amplitude and 180° out-of-phase signals. These signals are applied to the feed end of the microstrip at two feeding ports. The microstrip antenna length is chosen such that more than 97% of the input power is radiated by the traveling electromagnetic, wave, while the remaining power is absorbed by the resistively terminated antenna end.

The embodiment of the invention provides a microwave staring imaging method based on a time and space two-dimensional random radiation field and associative processing, which comprises the following steps that an antenna aperture field is specially required to randomly radiate a target area covered by a wave beam, and forming the noncorrelation characteristic that the radiation field with the time and space two-dimensional random distribution characteristics is required to simultaneously meet the time dimension and the space dimension; and after the radiation field is interacted with a detected target, a receiver is used for receiving an echo scattering field signal and extracting the target space information distribution of an area to be detected through receiving the correlated imaging process of a scattering filed and a known radiation field to realize the microwave staring imaging. With the adoption of the technical scheme provided by the invention, the defect that the traditional real aperture radar spatial resolution depends on the antenna aperture is overcome through the correlated microwave staring imaging of the time and space two-dimensional radiation field, and the high-resolution microwave staring imaging can be realized.

A device and a method for determining the position of an object, in particular of a moving object, in a three dimensional space is made available. Here the device comprises at least two switchable transmitting antenna arrays having different vertical beam alignments and a number of receiving antennas arranged in a row. The transmitting antennas are arranged spaced apart by a distance that corresponds to the distance between the outer phase centres of the receiving antennas. Otherwise the transmitting antennas can be positioned arbitrarily around the receiving antenna. The horizontal beam sweep over a wide angle range is implemented by the “digital beam forming” method. The vertical object position is measured by comparing the amplitude of the received signals with sequentially operated transmitting antennas having different vertical beam directions.

The invention relates to a high power microwave radial line slit array antenna which comprises a coaxial input waveguide, a radial line leaky wave waveguide and an antenna housing, wherein an output port of the coaxial input waveguide is connected with an input port of the radial line leaky wave waveguide, and an output port of the radial line leaky wave waveguide is sealed through the antenna housing. Microwaves are inputted through a coaxial over-mode waveguide in a transverse electronic and magnetic (TEM) mode, folding conversion is carried out through a double layer radial line waveguide, and microwave radial inner feedback is achieved on a waveguide upper layer. Slit unit arrays arranged on an antenna aperture cut a radial electric field, distant field same-phase superimposed circular polarization radian is achieved, the whole axial dimension is small, and the structure is compact. Due to action of a radial line slow wave structure, the wavelength of the radial line waveguide is reduced, and generation of slit array grating lobes is restrained. Due to the fact that a high order reflection mode excited by a wide slit array is restrained through a reflection offset spiral groove in a lower layer waveguide, the whole antenna has high radiant efficiency. Due to the improvement on the slit unit structure and vacuum sealing of the antenna housing, the whole radiating system has high power capacity, and application requirements in the high power microwave field can be met.

This invention discloses a realization device and a method for base station antenna stationary-wave ratio alarm, in which, a digital signal process module samples the inverse power detecting signals, processes the sampled digitalized information and outputs the stationary-ratio alarm signals by calibrating the antenna aperture stationary-ratio and detecting the inverse power, which is only necessary to test the reverse signal power to realize the antenna stationary-wave ratio alarm.

The invention relates to a quasi-plane wave generator and a quasi-plane wave generating method based on an array antenna. The quasi-plane wave generator comprises a two-dimensional array antenna aperture with electrical sizes of length and width exceeding 10 lowest operating frequency wavelengths, an array antenna unit and an array antenna feeding network. The quasi-plane wave generator utilizes aHuygens principle to form a high-quality quasi-plane wave static zone in the vicinity 1.5 times of the aperture size away from the two-dimensional array antenna aperture through performing control over array antenna unit position, excitation amplitude and phases. The quasi-plane wave generator and the generating method based on the array antenna have wide application range, can be applied to directional diagram measurement of an electrical-large antenna and RF index measurement of a system having the electrical-large antenna, and are particularly suitable for base station antenna measurementof 5G mobile communication and measurement of terminal antennas and systems in millimeter wave bands.

A phased array antenna system on an aircraft that incorporates a choke plate that significantly attenuates sidelobes of the antenna beam pattern at elevation angles that would cause RF interference with ground-based terrestrial wireless networks. The choke plate includes a plurality of choke grooves that substantially circumscribe the antenna aperture. The choke plate has an upper surface that is positioned generally coplanar with the upper surface of the antenna aperture. The grooves of the choke plate may be filled with a dielectric material. The choke plate provides a smooth aerodynamic component that significantly attenuates beam scattering, and thus the radiation pattern sidelobes of the antenna at or below the horizon, when the aircraft is in flight.

The invention discloses a method for obtaining the user terminal transceiving channel transmission time. The physical layer of the user terminal is set to support loop back testing. The switch is set on the emission state by the user terminal. The transmitter channel and receiving channel are in working state at the same time. The transmitter channel of the user terminal sends IQ signal according to the timing reference of the physic layer and records the time which is relative to the time when the timing reference sends the IQ signal. The IQ signal, which is released from the switch, is received by the receiving channel and processed with a physical layer synchronous algorithm to obtain the time of the IQ signal which is relative to the timing reference. The user terminal transceiving channel transmission time is obtained by comparing the time when the IQ signal is sent with the time when the IQ signal is received. The invention obtains the accurate transceiving channel transmission time via the loop back testing on the user terminal, furthermore the time initial lead which is obtained by the user terminal by using the antenna aperture as the reference can be corrected via the transmission time.

An antenna structure including at least two stacked antenna apertures, a first antenna aperture with first antenna elements and at least a second antenna aperture with second antenna elements. The antenna structure is arranged for operation in at least a high and a low frequency band. The first antenna elements are arranged for operation in the high frequency band and the second antenna elements for operation in the low frequency band. The first antenna elements are arranged to have a polarization substantially perpendicular to the polarization of the second antenna elements. The second antenna elements are arranged in at least one group and each of the group includes a number of second antenna elements coupled in series and arranged to have a common feeding point on a straight feeding structure. One feeding structure is located adjacent to each group of second antenna elements. The direction of the feeding structure is substantially perpendicular to the polarization of the first antenna elements. A corresponding method and a radar system including the antenna structure.

A plasma device serves as an antenna, single or stacked plasma frequency selective surfaces, single or stacked plasma antenna arrays, plasma lamps, plasma limiters, plasma switch, plasma windows or plasma phase shifters. An electromagnetic wave signal is controlled to have a plasma frequency matched as nearly as possible to the frequency of incident electromagnetic signals for maximizing the antenna aperture and efficiency. Matching the frequencies permits the plasma device to have a physical size and shape substantially independent of the conventional optimal size and shape for a given transceived signal frequency. The plasma device plasma frequency is adjustable for tuning to different incident signal frequencies, thereby providing flexibility not available from conventional metal antennas.