Lockheed Martin Corporation

Donald L Collinson

John A Rougas

Blake A Carnahan

Carl Coates

A subarray of a planar array antenna has a ground plane having a rear face and a front face, radiating elements, each of the radiating elements protruding forward of the front face and physically mounted to the ground plane; circuit elements electrically coupled to the radiating elements, and physically mounted to the ground plane and positioned rearward of the rear face of the ground plane; and a dielectric radome supported on the ground plane defining a continuous surface sealed to the ground plane. The continuous surface includes a forward wall positioned forward of each of the radiating elements to form an environmental seal around the radiating elements. The radome has an intermediate wall intermediate at least one pair of adjacent ones of the antenna elements.

Planar array antenna having radome over protruding antenna elements

A method for calibrating a phased array antenna comprises performing initial measurements of array antenna elements to ensure that calibration measurements are within the linear dynamic range of receive elements contained within the array. The method includes deriving calibration coefficients from a direct measurement of a forced out of phase condition and detection of deep nulls through adjustment of amplitude and phase settings over a range of frequencies of interest.

Mutual coupling method for calibrating a phased array

A dual band antenna array comprises a pair of coplanar antenna elements, the first antenna element excitable at a frequency within a first frequency band, the second antenna element excitable at a frequency within a second frequency band. A single transmission feed line in a second plane has an input for receiving a signal, the feed line dividing at a branch point into a first line segment for communicatively coupling the first antenna element with the input at a first feed point, and a second line segment for communicatively coupling the second antenna element with the input at a second feed point. The first and second line segments have lengths adapted for impedance matching at the first and second frequency bands, respectively, relative to the feed line input, to selectively allow energy transmission in one of the first and second line segments while reflecting energy in the other line segment according to the input signal frequency, whereby the activated antenna elements are passively switched based on the input signal frequency.

Passive self-switching dual band array antenna

Linear or planar arrays of vertically polarized dipole or monopole radiators for an IFF/SSR antenna are interleaved with existing linear arrays comprising a PSR antenna and fed by stripline corporate feed structures which provide the Sum and Side Lobe Suppression (SLS) Channels for IFF/SSR operations, thereby providing two antenna functions within a single antenna aperture area.

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Lafayette, NY, United States of America

Donald L Collinson