Low Cost, Scalable Radar Receive Array Using True Time Delay

HYPRES will bring the power of digital-RF technology and True Time Delay (TTD) beamforming to enable extremely wideband phased array radar receivers. By directly sampling the received signal and performing beamforming on the sampled version, the drift, bulk, expense, and power consumption of analog circuitry are avoided. By beamforming using time delay rather than phase, the beam is truly non-dispersive and will retain its precision over extremely wide bandwidths. By adopting a pseudo-monostatic or bistatic radar configuration, the receive antenna is not encumbered by the transmit circuitry. Our technology leads to an array configuration that is highly scalable both in terms of the number of elements and in the number of simultaneous beams. This scalability applies to both the electrical performance and to size, weight, and power. In Phase I, we shall investigate the use of unique superconductor mixed-signal, and digital electronic circuits to provide direct conversion of RF to the digital domain and ultrafast digital logic. We shall also develop innovative mechanical, cryogenic and electrical integration designs to enable construction of a modular array configuration. We will evaluate inclusion of superconductor and semiconductor cryogenic analog circuitry to provide superior low-noise amplification and filtering and to maximize the cryogenics efficacy.