Affordable Beamforming Network for TT&C Phased Array Antenna

The current antennas of choice for earth stations are parabolic reflector antennas such as those used for tracking telemetry and control (TT&C) for the AFSCN. These antennas are required to have horizon-to-horizon, full-hemispherical coverage and oftenseveral antennas are required at each remote tracking station site. A single active hemispherical phased array antenna composed of flat panel subarrays could replace all the reflector antennas at a remote tracking station site. The objectives of thisSBIR effort are to complete development of and demonstrate the technical feasibility of a low-cost beamforming network (BFN) with integrated radiating elements that will meet the requirements for TT&C in satellite control operations. The feed network isresponsible for RF power distribution to/from individual transmit/receive (T/R) modules and it must accommodate multiple transmit and receive beams with full duplex operation. The radiating elements must support dual-polarized full-duplex operation.Alpha Omega Electromagnetics, LLC (AOE) will employ proprietary electromagnetic simulation software to complete detail designs of the BFN and high performance radiating elements developed during Phase I of this and a related SBIR effort. The resultingdesigns will be based on low-cost high-performance configurations and will be validated through fabrication and test of an integrated BFN/radiating aperture passive subarray.