Beam steering and direction finding for a differentially segmented aperture antenna

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-12424742-B2
Application number	US-202218050552-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Oct 28, 2022
Priority date	Oct 29, 2021
Publication date	Sep 23, 2025
Grant date	Sep 23, 2025

Abstract

A beam steering system includes a differential segmented array (DSA) antenna comprising a plurality of pyramid structures and elements arranged in an array comprising a first and second set of direction elements, where each element is defined between opposing faces of two adjacent pyramid structures and a position of each element is located at a distance from a common origin of the elements of the array; phase gradient determination circuitry to determine a first and second phase gradient for the direction elements, where the phase gradients are based on a first and a second angle of a target with respect to the DSA antenna, and an operating frequency of the DSA antenna; and phase shift determination circuitry to determine a first and second phase shift, for each of the elements, and to determine a resultant phase shift, for each element, by summing the respective first and second phase shifts.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A beam steering system, comprising:
a differential segmented array (DSA) antenna comprising a plurality of pyramid structures arranged in an array and a plurality of elements formed in an array comprising a set of first direction elements and a set of second direction elements, wherein each element is defined between opposing faces of two adjacent pyramid structures, and further wherein a position of each element is located at a distance from a common origin of the elements of the array;
phase gradient determination circuitry to determine a first phase gradient for the set of first direction elements and to determine a second phase gradient for the set of second direction elements, wherein the first phase gradient and second phase gradient are based on a first angle of a target with respect to the DSA antenna, a second angle of the target with respect to the DSA antenna, and an operating frequency of the DSA antenna; and
phase shift determination circuitry to determine a first phase shift, for each of the elements, by multiplying the first phase gradient by the position of the element relative to the common origin of the elements of the array, and to determine a second phase shift, for each of the elements, by multiplying the second phase gradient by the position of the element relative to the common origin of the elements of the array, and to determine a resultant phase shift, for each element, by summing the respective first and second phase shift.

2. The system of claim 1 , wherein each respective resultant phase shift is applied to each respective element to cause a change in signal gain of the DSA antenna with respect to the target.

3. The system of claim 1 , further comprising phase shift application circuitry to apply each respective phase shift to each element of the DSA antenna to transmit a plurality of phase shifted signals to the target.

4. The system of claim 1 , further comprising phase alignment circuitry to remove the resultant phase shift from a signal received at each element to generate a plurality of in-phase signals.

5. The system of claim 4 , further comprising signal combining circuitry to sum the plurality of in-phase signals.

6. The system of claim 1 , wherein the phase gradient determination circuitry determines a location of a signal of interest by incrementing and/or decrementing the first phase gradient and/or the second phase gradient for a fixed frequency.

7. The system of claim 1 , wherein the first phase gradient is determined as:
cos (first angle of the target with respect to a DSA antenna array)X−cos (second angle of the target with respect to the DSA antenna array)X(360/(wavelength (f))), where wavelength (f) is equal to c/f, c is a speed of light and f is the operating frequency,
and further wherein the second phase gradient being determined as:
sin (first angle of the target with respect to the DSA antenna array)X−cos (second angle of the target with respect to the DSA antenna array)X(360/(wavelength (f))), where wavelength (f) is equal to c/f, c is the speed of light and f is the operating frequency.

8. A beam steering system, comprising:
a differential segmented array (DSA) antenna comprising a plurality of pyramid structures arranged in an array and a plurality of elements formed in an array comprising a set of first direction elements and a set of second direction elements, wherein each element is defined between opposing faces of two adjacent pyramid structures, and further wherein a position of each element is located at a distance from a common origin of the elements of the array;
one or more computer processors;
one or more computer readable storage media; and
program instructions stored on the one or more computer readable storage media for execution by at least one of the one or more computer processors, the stored program instructions including instructions to:
determine a first phase gradient for the set of first direction elements and to determine a second phase gradient for the set of second direction elements, the first and second phase gradients being based on a first angle of a target with respect to the DSA antenna, a second angle of the target with respect to the DSA antenna, and an operating frequency of the DSA antenna; and
determine a first phase shift, for each of the elements, by multiplying the first phase gradient by the position of the element relative to the common origin of the elements of the array, and to determine a second phase shift, for each of the elements, by multiplying the second phase gradient by the position of the element relative to the common origin of the elements of the array; and to determine a resultant phase shift, for each element, by summing the respective first and second phase shift.

9. The system of claim 8 , further comprising one or more of the following program instructions, stored on the one or more computer readable storage media, to:
apply each respective resultant phase shift to each respective element to cause a change in signal gain of the DSA antenna with respect to the target.

10. The system of claim 7 , further comprising one or more of the following program instructions, stored on the one or more computer readable storage media, to:
apply each respective phase shift to each element of the DSA antenna to transmit a plurality of phase shifted signals to the target.

11. The system of claim 8 , further comprising one or more of the following program instructions, stored on the one or more computer readable storage media, to:
determine the first phase gradient as:
cos (first angle of the target with respect to a DSA antenna array)X−cos (second angle of the target with respect to the DSA antenna array)X(360/(wavelength (f))), where wavelength (f) is equal to c/f, c is a speed of light and f is the operating frequency; and
determine the second phase gradient as:
sin (first angle of the target with respect to the DSA antenna array)X−cos (second angle of the target with respect to the DSA antenna array)X(360/(wavelength (f))), where wavelength (f) is equal to c/f, c is the speed of light and f is the operating frequency.

12. A method for beam steering an antenna, comprising:
determining a first phase gradient for a set of first direction elements of an antenna and determining a second phase gradient for a set of second direction elements of the antenna; the antenna comprising a differential segmented array (DSA) antenna comprising a plurality of pyramid structures arranged in an array; and a plurality of elements formed in an array comprising a set of first direction elements and a set of second direction elements; each element being defined between opposing faces of two adjacent pyramid structures, and a position of each element being located at a distance from a common origin of the elements of the array; the first and second phase gradient being based on a first angle of a target with respect to the DSA antenna, a second angle of the target with respect to the DSA antenna, and an operating frequency of the DSA antenna;
determining a first phase shift, for each of the elements, by multiplying the first phase gradient by the position of the element relative to the common origin of the elements of the array;
determining a second phase shift, for each of the elements, by multiplying the second phase gradient by the position of the element relative to the common origin of the elements of the array; and
determining a resultant phase shift, for each element, by summing the respective first and second phase shift.

13. The method of claim 12 , further comprising:
removing the resultant phase shift from a signal received at each

Assignees

• Battelle Memorial Institute

Inventors

• Perkins Daniel A
• Welsh Raphael J
• Thornton Douglas A
• Lau Jeffrey A
• Loesch Daniel G
• Fedoryka Damian B
• Kanke Roger
• Pitts Shannon

Classifications

• H01Q21/06

  Arrays of individually energised antenna units similarly polarised and spaced apart · CPC title

• H01Q21/29

  Combinations of different interacting antenna units for giving a desired directional characteristic (H01Q25/00 takes precedence) · CPC title

• H01Q13/085

  Slot-line radiating ends · CPC title

• H01Q21/064

  using horn or slot aerials (slotted waveguides arrays H01Q21/005) · CPC title

• H01Q3/30 Primary

  varying the {relative} phase {between the radiating elements of an array (H01Q3/2605, H01Q3/2658, H01Q3/2682, H01Q3/44 take precedence)} · CPC title