Multi-Beam Phased-Array Antenna Beamformers

Saraswati Associates is pleased to submit the following Phase I proposal. In this proposal we present our approach to develop technology for very large phased array antennas with many simultaneous beams and flexible wide bandwidth operation. Saraswati has developed the innovative CORONA beam forming concept under a DARPA Phase 1 SBIR contract). The CORONA system is very efficient for very large wide bandwidth phased array antennas because it scales with the square root of the number of elements whereas other concepts scale with either linearly with the number of elements or even the square of the number of elements. We have completed key risk reduction laboratory evaluations in a Phase 1A program and currently are in negotiations for the Phase II effort to develop the key elements of the basic beamformer. The basic CORONA beam forming architecture supports 4 simultaneous beams in X band. Also, in the basic CORONA system, the 4 beams have identical properties (eg. beamwidth, bandwidth, waveform, etc.). We propose to investigate enhancements to the CORONA architecture that allows for a high number of multiple beams (~16) with a flexible wide range of independent control of the beam properties:  Independent simultaneous waveforms for GMTI, AMTI, and acquisition  Independent control of bandwidth and center frequency  Independent control of beamshape and scan/track parameters  Multi-band operation Increasing the number of beams usually scales the beamformer linearly with the number of beams. Because CORONA scales as the square root it is well suited for multi-beam operation. We will utilize the analytic models and computer simulations that we have developed to design a flexible Multi-Beam CORONA (MB-CORONA) concept to have the above capabilities. The models include: Beam properties Bandiwdith and frequency response properties Main lobe beamwidth and gain Sidelobe performance Dynamic range Individual link performance Full scale antenna performance Phase control and time delay allocation budgets Allocation models down to individual components Size, weight, and power (SWAP) models Roll-ups for complete beamformer SWAP performance