Raytheon Company

Hughes Electronics Corporation

Lonny Richard Walker

Robert G Yaccarino

John M Hadden, Iv

Clifton Quan

James A Carr

Rohn Sauer

Steve K Panaretos

John A Crockett, Jr

Brian T McWhirter

Steven Edward Bradshaw

John Fraschilla

Thomas C DaVeiga

Jay L Edie

Steven E Bradshaw

The present invention relates to active electronically scanned array antennas. A thin, low cost design is provided by coupling electromagnetic energy into periodically driven long slots () using circulators with integrated probes (). The long slots () are formed as grooves () in a conductive base plate (), each groove () bracketed on both sides by conductive strips (). The circulators with integrated probes () are installed between the conductive strips () and the base plate (), to reduce fabrication costs of the machined parts and to facilitate the making of connections between the circulators and the antenna electronics. The probes () protrude partway into the slots () and provide coupling to waves propagating in free space.

Low profile cavity backed long slot array antenna with integrated circulators

An antenna system includes an array of notch radiators, arranged in aligned rows on longitudinal axes to define a series of troughs between adjacent notch radiator rows within an aperture area, each notch radiator including a tip region. A plurality of surface/traveling wave suppressors fabricated of microwave energy absorbing material is disposed in the troughs, so that a longest suppressor dimension is transverse or nearly transverse to the array face and so that a suppressor surface is transverse or nearly transverse to the longitudinal axes.

Surface/traveling wave suppressor for antenna arrays of notch radiators

An array of thick flared notch radiators, wherein the separation distance between adjacent pairs of flared notch sticks is set to be less than one-half wavelength at the highest frequency of concern. The separation distance suppresses the propagation of higher order modes along the length of the sticks, which would degrade the array performance. The separation distance is achieved by fabricating the sticks with an increased thickness, thereby reducing the stick-to-stick channel width.

Thick flared notch radiator array

A three port microwave circulator in a slot line transmission medium. Two slot lines are formed which extend from two ports of the circulator in a collinear alignment through a coupler region, and are joined at a power combining junction to provide a single transmission line to the third port of the circulator. A ferrite slab overlays the coupler region. The ferrite is saturated with a static magnetic field, applied by a magnet, along a direction of signal propagation. The circulator can be integrated into a flared notch radiator element to provide separate transmit and receive ports.

Three port slot line circulator

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Torrance, CA, United States of America

Lonny Richard Walker