True-Time-Delay Steerable Conformal Impulse Receive Antenna Arrays

AFRL is developing a wide range of UWB radar applications, a number of which call for the development of conformal receive antenna arrays capable of true-time-delay beam steering. We propose to develop these specific enabling technologies for “true-time-delay” beam steering: •Configure the antenna system to precisely delay received signals from each antenna element and then coherently combine them to account for the direction of wavefront arrival across the array; •Correct for phase dispersion generated by each separate array element as well as phase aberration due to angle-of-arrival effects in each element; •Adjust impedance behavior of each antenna element to optimize reception sensitivity around frequencies of immediate interest. Phase I developed the above technologies and performed proof-of-concept experiments that demonstrated the ability to correct for phase dispersion, VSWR reduction, and bandwidth tuning using manual optical control signals. In Phase II we propose to advance these enabling technologies by adopting the latest photo-reactive material and by automating the configuration of the antenna under computer control. We will initially deliver stand-alone modules for isolating each technology, followed by the full scale demonstration of true time delay steering by integrating the technologies into an AFRL selected UWB antenna array.