Phased Array Phase Center Steering for Grating Lobe Suppression
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Solution Overview
Problem
Electronically steerable array antennas face challenges in power-constrained applications due to high power requirements of digital signal processing, while analog solutions lack the capabilities of digital processing, leading to issues with grating lobes and aperture efficiency.
Innovation Solution
A hybrid approach combining analog and digital beamformers in a phased array antenna, where analog beamformers steer individual antenna elements and digital beamformers steer subarrays, with phase centers electronically adjusted to emulate an irregular pattern, suppressing grating lobes and improving aperture efficiency.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If digital signal processing is used for beam steering, then beam agility and simultaneous beams are improved, but power consumption increases significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The antenna array is divided into multiple subarrays, each with its own phase shifter. This segmentation allows digital signal processing to be applied selectively to groups of elements rather than requiring full digital processing for every element, reducing the overall power consumption while maintaining beam steering capability and agility.
2Use of energy by moving object
If analog signal processing is used for beam steering, then power consumption is reduced, but grating lobes appear and aperture efficiency decreases
Solution Approach 1:
Different signal processing approaches are applied to different parts of the antenna array. Analog processing with phase shifters is used at the subarray level to reduce power consumption, while digital signal processing is applied at the element level within each subarray to suppress grating lobes and improve aperture efficiency. This local differentiation of processing quality allows the system to achieve both low power consumption and high performance.
Data Source
AI summary
A phased array antenna is provided that includes a plurality of antenna elements arranged in a plurality of subarrays. A plurality of first beamformers is coupled to respective elements of the plurality of antenna elements, and a plurality of second beamformers is coupled to respective subarrays of the plurality of subarrays. A controller is configured to steer a phase center for each of the plurality of subarrays using the plurality of first beamformers so that the phase centers for the plurality of subarrays are irregularly spaced.