The Boeing Company

Frank R Brogden

Rodney Kevin Bonebright

Robert G Ford

Jay W Clement

Fong Shi

Mark A Curry

Mark Richard Davis

A phased array antenna system includes a plurality of radio frequency (RF) tile sub-arrays. Each RF tile sub-array includes a multiplicity of RF elements, a tile control integrated circuit, a multiplicity of RF integrated circuits and a configuration storage device. The configuration storage device stores data including calibration and configuration information that is unique to the RF tile sub-array and the tile control integrated circuit. The multiplicity of RF integrated circuits, the multiplicity of RF elements, and the configuration storage device are disposed on a single associated RF tile sub-array. The system also includes an antenna controller configured to process data for steering or tracking one or more RF beams by the multiplicity of RF elements. The calibration and configuration information that is unique to the RF tile sub-array is downloaded from the configuration storage device through the tile control integrated circuit to an RF element compensation table.

Phased array antenna system including a modular control and monitoring architecture

A method and apparatus for steering a beam from a phased array antenna mounted on a mobile platform. Rate sensors mounted on the phased array antenna are used to update lower bandwidth data from the mobile platform, resulting in improved pointing performance.

Beam steering control for mobile antennas

An advanced external beam steering controller (AEBSC) for use with a phased array antenna which requires only spherical coordinate pointing information to be supplied from a remote controller. The AEBSC uses the spherical coordinate pointing information, as well as stored information for the X, Y and Z axes locations of each specific antenna element of the phased array antenna, to generate actual phase shift values needed to be applied to each antenna element in order to point the antenna in accordance with a predetermined pointing angle. The invention significantly reduces the amount of electrical cabling required for communicating with the external controller, and also reduces the required data rate at which information must be supplied from the remote controller to the AEBSC.

Growing community of inventors

Auburn, WA, United States of America

Frank R Brogden