Wideband Beamformer

An innovative wideband beamformer is proposed that covers the entire 7 to 14GHz frequency range with greater than 10 independent steerable beams that can be scanned +/-60 degrees. Any given signal will have an instantaneous bandwidth of at least 60MHz over the full octave bandwidth of the beamformer.Future surveillance radars need to be more agile. These future radars need to have two dimensional scanning capability when operating in either the receive or transmit mode. Our design encompasses both the transmit and receive architecture for the beamformer. The innovative design that we are proposing can be readily developed for a planar array and an orthogonal scan-plane application. The beamformer that we are proposing has an insertion loss of approximately 0dB and an isolation of greater than 30dB. Based on our initial design, a two-sided package for a 16-Channel LNA/Divider/Phase-shifter Module has dimensions of approximately 0.485 x 0.5 x 0.25 inches. The successful development of the beamformer will accelerate other applications in communication and ECM systems.