Phased Array Antenna Having Sub-Arrays

• US 20170207547A1
• Filed: 01/15/2016
• Published: 07/20/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 01/15/2016
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. (Huawei Investment & Holding Co., Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. (Huawei Investment & Holding Co., Ltd.)
• Inventors: Miraftab, Vahid, Zhai, Wenyao
• Granted Patent: US 10,454,187 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: H01Q 21/0025 Modular arrays
• CPC Class Codes: H01Q 21/065 Patch antenna array

Abstract

An antenna for a phased array comprises a plurality of rectangular sub-arrays of individual array elements. The rectangular sub-arrays in the plurality are tiled to reduce periodicity of phase centers of the sub-arrays. The antenna utilizes a phase shifter for each sub-array as opposed to using a phase shifter with each individual array element.

Claims

1. A phased array antenna comprising:

a plurality of rectangular sub-arrays of individual array elements, each of the plurality of rectangular sub-arrays having a phase center, the plurality of rectangular sub-arrays tiled to reduce periodicity of the phase centers.

2. The phased array antenna of claim 1, wherein the array elements in respective rectangular sub-arrays are connected to a common phase shifter.

3. The phased array antenna of claim 1, wherein each of the plurality of rectangular sub-arrays has respective major axis and minor axis.

4. The phased array antenna of claim 3, wherein a subset of the plurality of rectangular sub-arrays are tiled with major axes arranged perpendicular to the major axes of other rectangular sub-arrays.

5. The phased array antenna of claim 1, wherein the rectangular sub-arrays are tiled to provide a greater number of phase center locations along an axis of the phased array antenna.

6. The phased array antenna of claim 1, wherein the phase centers of the rectangular sub-arrays are located within respective rectangular sub-arrays.

7. The phased array antenna of claim 1, wherein each of the rectangular sub-arrays comprises 8 individual array elements.

8. The phased array antenna of claim 7, wherein the rectangular sub-arrays comprise 4×

2 rectangles of individual array elements.

9. The phased array antenna of claim 8, wherein the rectangular sub-arrays further comprise 8×

1 rectangles of individual array elements.

10. The phased array antenna of claim 9, wherein there is a greater number of 4×

2 rectangular sub-arrays than 8×

1 rectangular sub-arrays.

11. The phased array antenna of claim 1, wherein each sub-array is associated with an amplitude weighting.

12. The phased array antenna of claim 11, wherein the sub-arrays are assigned the amplitude weightings to provide an approximation of a column weighting.

13. The phased array antenna of claim 11, wherein two or more individual array elements within respective rectangular sub-arrays are associated with different amplitude weightings.

14. The phased array antenna of claim 11, wherein the amplitude weightings are Chebyshev weightings.

15. The phased array antenna of claim 1, wherein a frequency used by the phase array antenna is in a range of about 71-86 GHz.

16. The phased array antenna of claim 1, wherein spacing between individual antenna elements is approximately equal to λ

₀/2, where λ

₀ is a wavelength in free space at a particular operating frequency of the phase array antenna.

17. The phased array antenna of claim 1, wherein there are 1024 individual antenna elements.

18. The phased array antenna of claim 1, wherein the array elements in respective rectangular sub-arrays are connected to a common delay line.

19. The phased array antenna of claim 1, wherein the individual array elements, across the plurality of rectangular sub-arrays, are arranged in a regular grid pattern.

20. The phased array antenna of claim 1 wherein each sub-array in the phased array antenna is a rectangular sub-array.

21. A phased array antenna comprising:

a plurality of phased array antenna components each of the phased array antenna components comprising a plurality of rectangular sub-arrays of individual array elements, the plurality of rectangular sub-arrays tiled to reduce periodicity of phase centers of the plurality of sub-arrays.