Raytheon Company

David J Fairfield

Keith C Smith

Steven L Kaufman

Carl O Jelinek

Fred Gallagher

The present invention concerns methods and apparatus for implementing a true-time-delay wideband digital beamformer. In true-time-delay wideband digital beamformers of the present invention, improved control over beam properties formed by the combination of the beamformer and a multi-element antenna coupled to the beamformer is achieved through finer control of delays imparted to data signals. In beamformers of the present invention, data is delayed using a coarse control that provides a delay in whole increments of a clock cycle of a digital clock reference and a fine control that provides a delay corresponding to a fraction of a whole clock cycle of the digital clock reference. In the true time delay method of the present invention, transmission and reception across a wide frequency band is accommodated. In the true time delay method of the present invention, multiple simultaneous beams are formed independently, beam-to-beam, across a wide frequency band.

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Goleta, CA, United States of America

David J Fairfield