Hrl Laboratories, LLC

Gm Global Technolgoy Operations, Inc.

The Boeing Company

Amit Madanlal Patel

James H Schaffner

Timothy J Talty

Hyok Jae Song

Duane S Carper

Eray Yasan

Keerti S Kona

Ryan G Quarfoth

Daniel J Gregoire

Raviv Perahia

Logan D Sorenson

Walter S Wall

Adour Vahe Kabakian

Lian X Huang

Jeremy Bregman

Sean M Meenehan

Michael De La Chapelle

Hanseung Lee

A tunable antenna isolator includes a first wall, a second wall, and an electromagnetic band-gap (EBG) structure located between the first wall and the second wall. The first wall may be a metallic wall or an EBG structure, and the second wall may be a metallic wall or an EBG structure.

Tunable antenna isolators

A curved phononic waveguide. In some embodiments, the curved phononic waveguide includes a sheet including a plurality of standard reflectors and a plurality of divergent reflectors. Each of the standard reflectors is associated with a respective grid point of a grid defined by a plurality of intersecting lines, each grid point being a respective intersection of two of a plurality of intersecting lines, the grid being locally periodic to within 5%, and having a local grid spacing. Each of the standard reflectors has a center separated from the respective grid point of the standard reflector by at most 1% of the grid spacing. The divergent reflectors define a waveguide among the standard reflectors, each of the divergent reflectors being an absent reflector or a reflector that is smaller than one of the standard reflectors.

Curved phononic crystal waveguide

A holographic antenna includes a transmission line and a plurality of interdigital capacitor (IDC) slots respectively formed along the transmission line. The holographic antenna also includes an active tuning device connected to each IDC slot from the plurality of IDC slots. Each active tuning device is configured to provide a holographic pattern on the plurality of IDC slots in response to the holographic antenna transmitting or receiving an electromagnetic signal. The holographic pattern is controllable for scanning an electromagnetic beam by the holographic antenna. The holographic antenna also includes a biasing source coupled to each active tuning device and configured to control its respective operation.

Electronically-reconfigurable interdigital capacitor slot holographic antenna

A phononic coupler. In some embodiments, the phononic coupler includes a sheet, including a plurality of standard reflectors, and a plurality of divergent reflectors. The divergent reflectors define, among the standard reflectors, a first waveguide, and a second waveguide. The coupler has a first port, at a first end of the coupler, a second port, at the first end of the coupler, and a third port, at a second end of the coupler. The first waveguide has a first end at the first port. The second waveguide has a first end at the second port, and a second end at the third port. The coupler is configured to couple longitudinal sound waves to both the first port and the second port.

Phononic crystal coupler

An autonomously reconfigurable surface for adaptive antenna nulling includes a lattice of electrically conductive elements (which may be embodied as crossed metallic dipoles) mounted on a thin and preferably conformal surface and aperiodically loaded with reactance tuning elements and/or RF (and typically high power) sensing circuits. Additional elements mounted on this surface include analog to digital convertors (ADCs), digital to analog convertors (DACs), and microcontroller(s). The analog outputs of the DACs are networked to reactance tuning elements via, for example, a network of thin copper traces. The analog inputs of the ADCs are networked to the RF sensing circuits via a network, for example, of thin copper traces. The digital outputs of ADCs and the digital inputs of DACs are networked to microcontroller(s) via a network, for example, of thin copper traces. An embodiment of the adaptive nulling surface can be mounted over antennas and apertures as a retrofit antenna cover or as an overlay applied to existing radomes or over a new design antenna. Once exposed to a high power radio frequency radiation, this surface determines the direction of the incident high power source and adaptively adjusts the reactance of tuning elements in the surface to reconfigure the radiation pattern of the antenna which it is covering to place a null in the direction of the interference while allowing normal operation at other angles.

Autonomously reconfigurable surface for adaptive antenna nulling

A method for providing control of surface waves propagating on a surface includes forming a surface treatment on the surface, wherein the surface treatment is configured to achieve a tensor surface admittance distribution matrix on the surface determined according to a modified transformation electromagnetics (tEM) equation.

Metasurfaces for improving co-site isolation for electronic warfare applications

A method and apparatus for converting electromagnetic surface waves from TE mode to TM mode or from TM mode to TE mode. The apparatus includes a dielectric surface having an anisotropic impedance tensor which is preferably obtained by a plurality of electrically conductive unit cells disposed on the dielectric surface and arranged in a two dimensional array of unit cells, a majority of the unit cells in said array being divided into at least two portions, with at least one gap separating the at least two portions from each other into two or more patches or plates, the array of unit cells having a surface wave input end and a surface wave output end, gaps in the unit cells disposed closest to the surface wave input end having a first orientation and gaps in said unit cells disposed closest to the surface wave output end having a second orientation different than said first orientation. The electromagnetic surface waves have a frequency greater than a TE cutoff frequency determined by a second solution of Maxwell's equations for said dielectric surface.

Surface wave polarization converter

A thin film, flexible antenna that has particular application to be adhered to vehicle glass, where the antenna has a wideband antenna geometry and is operable to receive right-hand or left-hand circularly polarized signals from, for example, GPS and SDARS satellites. The antenna is a printed planar antenna formed to the substrate and includes a ground plane having a slot formed therein and a tuning sleeve having a vertical portion and a horizontal portion. The planar antenna further includes a radiating element positioned adjacent to the tuning sleeve and including a feed portion positioned within the slot, where the radiating element includes a first horizontal portion and a second horizontal portion extending from a vertical portion towards the vertical portion of the sleeve. The ground plane is operable to generate circularly polarized signals to be received by the radiating element where the sleeve provides phase tuning of the signals.

CPW-fed modified sleeve monopole for GPS, GLONASS, and SDARS bands

A thin film, flexible, co-planar waveguide (CPW), antenna structure suitable to be mounted on vehicle glass and that has particular application for MIMO LTE applications in, for example, the 0.46-3.8 GHz frequency band. The antenna structure includes a planar antenna formed on a substrate that includes a ground plane having an elliptical cut-out slot section defined within an outer perimeter portion of the ground plane and an antenna radiating element extending into the slot from the perimeter portion.

Wideband transparent elliptical antenna applique for attachment to glass

An adaptive detection and nulling system includes an antenna or radio frequency aperture, an electronically tunable radome placed over the antenna or radio frequency aperture, the radome including a plurality of scatterers on a substrate, and one or more tunable reactance elements connecting at least two of the scatterers, a microcontroller coupled to the tunable reactive elements and configured to control the reactance values of the one or more tunable reactance elements, and a sensing circuit coupled to the microcontroller, wherein inputs from the sensing circuit are used by the microcontroller to adaptively determine bias voltages to the one or more tunable reactance elements using characterization data of the radome to control the tunable reactance elements to form one or more nulls in a receive radiation pattern of the antenna.

Adaptive nulling metasurface retrofit

A thin film, flexible antenna that has particular application to be adhered to vehicle glass, where the antenna is operable to receive right-hand or left-hand circularly polarized signals from, for example, GPS and SDARS satellites. The antenna is a printed planar antenna formed to the substrate and includes a ground plane having an outer perimeter portion defining a slot therein and having a plurality of sides. A T-line tuning stub extends from one of the sides into the slot, a curved spur-line tuning stub extends from a corner where two sides of the perimeter portion meet and extends into the slot, and a radiating element electrically isolated from the perimeter portion extends into the slot. The perimeter portion is operable to generate circularly polarized signals to be received by the radiating element where the tuning stubs provide phase tuning of the circularly polarized signals.

CPW-fed circularly polarized applique antennas for GPS and SDARS bands

Several embodiments of systems and methods are described for a compound structure consisting of a compact conformal surface-wave antenna feed structure attached to a conformal surface-wave antenna. The feed structure is an Artificial Impedance Surface (AIS) which takes as input an arbitrary source, converts it into a desired surface-wave waveform, which then feeds its output into the attached conformal surface-wave antenna for optimal radiation performance. The feed structure can be made up of several sizes and shapes of AIS metal patches and can produce plane isotropic as well as anisotropic surface-wave output. The surface-wave antenna can be a radiating hologram made up of the same AIS metallic patches as the feed structure and fabricated on the same dielectric substrate.

Holographic artificial impedance antennas with flat lens feed structure

An antenna assembly including a planar antenna formed on a dielectric substrate and a frequency selective impedance surface formed on the substrate and at least partially surrounding the antenna. The frequency selective impedance surface receives surface waves propagating along the dielectric substrate generated by the antenna, where the impedance surface mitigates negative effects of the surface waves by converting the surface wave energy into leaky-wave radiation, and also possibly providing some control of the radiation gain pattern of the antenna. In one embodiment, the dielectric substrate is vehicle glass, such as a vehicle windshield.

Impedance surface treatment for mitigating surface waves and improving gain of antennas on glass

A thin film, flexible, leaky-wave CPW antenna that can mounted to a dielectric substrate on a vehicle, such as vehicle glass, where the antenna has application for a MIMO LTE cellular system, and where the conductive portion of the antenna can employ transparent conductors. The antenna includes a ground plane having opposing first and second ground lines defining a gap therebetween and an antenna radiating element extending between the ground lines in the gap. The antenna radiating element includes a plurality of leaky-wave tuning stubs crossing the antenna radiating element at predetermined intervals that operates to change the radiation pattern of the antenna to be more parallel to the ground.

Growing community of inventors

Santa Monica, CA, United States of America

Amit Madanlal Patel