Antenna beam steering controller
First Claim
1. In an electronically scanned phased array antenna system including an array of antenna elements and a phase shifter corresponding to each antenna element in said array for adjusting the phase of the signal associated with said corresponding antenna element, said each phase shifter being governed by a computed phase shift value, the plurality of which effecting a phased array on the signals of the antenna elements for pointing the antenna beam in a desired direction;
- a phase shift controller corresponding to each phase shifter for individually computing said phase shift value which governs said corresponding phase shifter, each phase shift controller being preprogrammed with a predetermined phase shift value increment to compute a sequence of phase shift values in accordance with a predetermined time pattern, thereby governing the scan of the antenna beam in a corresponding sequence of desired directions.
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Accused Products
Abstract
An electronically scanned phased array antenna system comprises a phase shift controller corresponding to each antenna array element for individually computing a phase shift value which governs the phase of the signal associated with the corresponding antenna element. The computed phase shift values of all the phase shift controllers effect a phased array on the signals of the antenna elements to point the antenna beam in a desired direction. Each of the phase shift controllers is programmed with a predetermined phase shift value increment for computing a sequence of phase shift values at specified intervals of a predetermined time pattern, each new phase shift value being preferably concurrently computed by the phase shift controllers at the specified time intervals. The phased arrays resulting from each of the newly-computed phase shift values of the sequence render the antenna beam to be scanned in a corresponding sequence of desired directions according to the specified intervals, which may be non-uniformly spaced, in the predetermined time patterns. Each predetermined phase shift value increment correspondly programmed into each phase shift controller may be based on a function of the geometric position of the correspondingly associated antenna element in the antenna array.
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Citations
9 Claims
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1. In an electronically scanned phased array antenna system including an array of antenna elements and a phase shifter corresponding to each antenna element in said array for adjusting the phase of the signal associated with said corresponding antenna element, said each phase shifter being governed by a computed phase shift value, the plurality of which effecting a phased array on the signals of the antenna elements for pointing the antenna beam in a desired direction;
a phase shift controller corresponding to each phase shifter for individually computing said phase shift value which governs said corresponding phase shifter, each phase shift controller being preprogrammed with a predetermined phase shift value increment to compute a sequence of phase shift values in accordance with a predetermined time pattern, thereby governing the scan of the antenna beam in a corresponding sequence of desired directions. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)
Specification