Wideband Digital Beamforming Processor for Multi-Beam Phased Array

The objective of the proposed effort is to develop a digital beamforming (DBF) processor capable of generating multiple simultaneous receive beams with a wide (>500 MHz) instantaneous bandwidth (IBW). This would offer a significant improvement over a similar DBF processor with 15 MHz IBW that Applied Radar, Inc. previously developed for AFRL. The wide bandwidth is necessary for a number of high-resolution SAR and GMTI radar applications of interest to MDA. The wideband digital beamforming offers a great deal of flexibility of the radar system, including multiple receive beams, adaptive null and beam steering, and improved performance through dynamic calibration. The DBF processor will be implemented using the latest FPGA technology, which allows for rapid hardware development, with processing implemented in firmware. A plug-and-play architecture allows different analog front-end modules representing different frequency bands to be utilized with a common DBF processor. When combined with the wideband digital T/R modules employing 2 GSPS A/D technology that Applied Radar is currently developing under separate related efforts, this DBF processor offers a significant advancement in radar capability over existing systems.