Scalable Directional Antenna for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs)

The Navy’s mission of global force projection and logistic support requires surface ships and naval aviation assets to be deployed worldwide with little supporting infrastructure for communications. Airborne units provide extended line of sight for network connectivity between surface vessels as well as contributing unique sensor capabilities. The use of unmanned aerial systems (UAS) as airborne nodes for communications will provide additional capability to ensure uninterrupted connectivity throughout the fleet, but for a variety of naval UAS platforms to easily serve in this role a scalable and affordable airborne phased array antenna is required. FIRST RF has developed an industry-leading phased array architecture that is uniquely suited to address this need. This phased array approach is based on a modular building block that combines the RF, electronic, thermal, and mechanical features of a phased array antenna into a low-cost subassembly. This active antenna module is easily manufactured and tested using standard high volume printed circuit processes. FIRST RF has had dramatic success applying this approach to X-Band for airborne radar and Ku-Band communications. Translating this technology to C-Band promises to yield a cutting-edge phased array solution for the Navy with rapid transition to the fleet.