Scalable Low-Cost AESA Transmitter with Phase-Only Nulling

Parry Labs proposes the development and fabrication of a scalable, low-cost, transmit only wideband active electronically scanned array (AESA) operating in Ku band. Operating at Ku band maximizes aperture gain while also minimizing physical size and transmission loss due to rain and other atmospheric effects. The proposed system will be based on a scalable tile building block that can be used to construct AESAs of arbitrary sizes. The tile will employ monolithic microwave integrated circuits (MMICs) designed and fabricated by Parry Labs on a previous effort for amplification and beamsteering. These wideband MMICs support operational frequencies tunable from 10 to 15 GHz at a per unit cost point that is less than half of the cost of the comparable industry product while also operating at higher output power, linearity, and efficiency. Array costs, which are generally driven by the cost of the MMICs, will be minimized by optimizing the MMIC control and packaging for the application and eliminating the normal commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) cost burden associated with the amortization of MMIC nonrecurring engineering (NRE) costs. Parry Labs’s MMIC NRE costs have already been paid on a separate government effort. Parry Labs’s antenna elements and beamsteering circuitry have been designed for consistent performance over scan, thus reducing antenna element amplitude and phase errors which ultimately bound the performance of adaptive beamforming techniques such as phase-only null steering. The Parry Labs team has algorithmic, antenna, microwave, mechanical, integration, testing, and certification expertise, all of which combine to form a vertically-integrated phased array design, fabrication, and deployment capability.