Phase management for beam-forming applications
First Claim
1. A beam-forming system, comprisinga plurality of integrated antenna circuits, each integrated antenna circuit including a phase-locked loop and a corresponding antenna and mixer, each phase-locked loop operable to receive a reference signal and provide a frequency-shifted output signal that is synchronous with the reference signal, wherein if an integrated antenna circuit is configured for transmission, the output signal is upconverted in the circuit'"'"'s mixer and the upconverted signal transmitted by the corresponding antenna, and wherein if an integrated antenna unit is configured for reception, a received signal from the circuit'"'"'s antenna is downconverted in the mixer responsive to the output signal,wherein a first integrated antenna circuit in the plurality is configured as a reference antenna circuit such that the reference signal received by the reference antenna unit is a reference clock, the reference antenna circuit including a programmable phase sequencer operable to provide phase-shifted versions of the reference clock, and wherein remaining integrated antenna circuits in the plurality are configured to use selected ones from the phase-shifted versions as their reference signal.
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Abstract
A beam-forming antenna system includes an array of integrated antenna circuits. Each integrated antenna circuit includes an oscillator coupled to an antenna. A network couples to the integrated antenna units to provide phasing information to the oscillators. A controller controls the phasing information provided by the network to the oscillators. In an alternative embodiment, the phasing to each antenna element is controlled through a fixed corporate feed network. The relative gains of the antenna signals received or transmitted through the fixed corporate feed may be adjusted with respect to each other to provide a beam steering capability.
68 Citations
16 Claims
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1. A beam-forming system, comprising
a plurality of integrated antenna circuits, each integrated antenna circuit including a phase-locked loop and a corresponding antenna and mixer, each phase-locked loop operable to receive a reference signal and provide a frequency-shifted output signal that is synchronous with the reference signal, wherein if an integrated antenna circuit is configured for transmission, the output signal is upconverted in the circuit'"'"'s mixer and the upconverted signal transmitted by the corresponding antenna, and wherein if an integrated antenna unit is configured for reception, a received signal from the circuit'"'"'s antenna is downconverted in the mixer responsive to the output signal, wherein a first integrated antenna circuit in the plurality is configured as a reference antenna circuit such that the reference signal received by the reference antenna unit is a reference clock, the reference antenna circuit including a programmable phase sequencer operable to provide phase-shifted versions of the reference clock, and wherein remaining integrated antenna circuits in the plurality are configured to use selected ones from the phase-shifted versions as their reference signal.
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10. A beam-forming system, comprising:
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a reference clock source; a first programmable phase sequencer for providing phase-adjusted versions of a reference clock provided by the reference clock source; and a first plurality of integrated antenna circuits, each integrated antenna circuit including a phase-locked loop and a corresponding antenna and mixer, each phase-locked loop operable to receive a selected one of the phase-adjusted versions of the reference clock and provide a frequency-shifted output signal that is synchronous with the reference clock, wherein if an integrated antenna circuit is configured for transmission, the output signal is upconverted in the circuit'"'"'s mixer and the upconverted signal transmitted by the corresponding antenna, and wherein if an integrated antenna unit is configured for reception, a received signal from the circuit'"'"'s antenna is downconverted in the mixer responsive to the output signal. - View Dependent Claims (11, 12, 13, 14, 15)
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16. A beam-forming system, comprising:
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a programmable phase sequencer operable to provide phase-shifted versions of a reference clock, and a plurality of integrated antenna circuits corresponding to the phase-shifted versions of the reference clock, each integrated antenna circuit including a phase-locked loop and a corresponding antenna and mixer, each phase-locked loop operable to receive the corresponding phase-shifted version of the reference clock as a reference signal and provide a frequency-shifted output signal that is synchronous with the reference signal, wherein if an integrated antenna circuit is configured for transmission, the output signal is upconverted in the circuit'"'"'s mixer and the upconverted signal transmitted by the corresponding antenna, and wherein if an integrated antenna unit is configured for reception, a received signal from the circuit'"'"'s antenna is downconverted in the mixer responsive to the output signal.
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Specification