Small Business Innovative Research Award
| Topic Number: | AF03-208 |
| Proposal Title: | EHF Wideband Digital Beamforming Array for SATCOM |
| Firm Name: | Applied Radar, Inc. |
| Phase I/II: | I |
| Technical Abstract: |
| This project will develop wideband digital beamforming (DBF) array technology that may be used as a multi-beam phased-array feed for a W-band (EHF) SATCOM antenna. This DBF feed antenna is to be placed behind the focal plane of a dielectric lens such as a Friedlander or a Holt-Mayer lens, with the possible addition of a secondary feed lens to converge the phased-array amplitude and phase excitation onto the focal plane of the primary lens. This lens antenna system amounts to a completely overlapped subarray design with the DBF channels as the subarray inputs. The EHF antenna is capable of scanning multiple simultaneous beams with beamwidths less than 1.0 degrees over a limited range of incidence angles. This scanning capability is necessary for simultaneous tracking and high data rate communications with multiple satellites in LEO orbit. The digital beamforming technology necessary to realize at least 1 GHz of instantaneous bandwidth at W-band will be investigated in this Phase I R+D effort. |