MULTIPLE BEAMWIDTH MMW ANTENNA

MALIBU RESEARCH HAS DEVELOPED TECHNIQUES FOREXTREMELY RAPID SCAN OF W-BAND AND KA-BAND BEAMS (> 500¿/S) KNOWN AS ANEDGE-EAGLE SCANNER. THIS ANTENNA OPERATES ON THE PRINCIPLE OF VOICE-COILMODULATION OF ONE WALL OF AN EDGE-SLOTTED WR-10 OR WR-28 WAVEGUIDE. ITHAS INHERENT TO ITS OPERATION THE ABILITY TO OBTAIN A WIDELY VARYINGNON-LINEAR APERTURE PHASE AND THUS THE ABILITY TO GENERATE UP TO A 30:1VARIABLE BEAMWIDTH. UNDER THE PROPOSED SBIR PHASE 1 PROGRAM, A DETAILED ANALYSIS OF SUCHA DESIGN WILL BE PERFORMED. AN EXPERIMENTAL DEMONSTRATION OF AT LEAST10:1 BEAMWIDTH VARIATION UTILIZING AN EXISTING 4" W-BAND ANTENNA WILL BEPERFORMED WITH 1MS TO 2MS BEAMWIDTH SWITCHING TIME. AS A PART OF THE PROPOSED PHASE 1 PROGRAM, MALIBU RESEARCH ALSOPROPOSES TO EVALUATE THE FEASIBILITY OF USING A SECOND MALIBU RESEARCHANTENNA TECHNIQUE KNOWN AS FLAPS, FOR GENERATION OF A VARIABLE BEAMWIDTH.THIS TECHNIQUE USES A UNIQUE ELECTROMAGNETIC STRUCTURE HAVING THECAPABILITY OF SCATTERING FEED-INCIDENT RF ENERGY IN SPECIFIC PATTERNS.THIS HAS BEEN USED TO GENERATE SWITCHABLE PENCIL AND CSC2 PATTERNS FROMTHE SAME ANTENNA. BY MEANS OF A SIMILAR DESIGN IT SHOULD BE POSSIBLE TOGENERATE AN ELECTRONIC VARIABLE BEAMWIDTH ANTENNA. THE FLAPS TECHNIQUE,DESCRIBED IN THIS PROPOSAL, IS PARTICULARLY APPLICABLE AT W-BAND. ANTICIPATED BENEFITS: LOW-COST, ELECTRONICALLY VARIABLE BEAMWIDTHANTENNA FOR COMMERCIAL AVIATION AND COMMERCIAL AUTOMOBILE COLLISIONAVOIDANCE RADARS.