Westinghouse Electric Corporation

Peggy J Sowell

Francis W Hopwood

Dale R Logan

William H Renwick

Jonathan B Hammer

A phased array antenna having a first plurality of phase shifters each connected to a solid state transmit module power amplifier. Equal split power combiners, each having a pair of inputs and a pair of outputs, are connected to the power amplifiers and to each other in a corporated tree hierarchal configuration. One of the pair of inputs of each of the power combiners of each higher hierarchy is connected to one of the pair of outputs of the power combiners of a lower hierarchy. A subarray is connected to the other of the pair of outputs of each of the power combiners. A subarray is connected to both outputs of the highest hierarchy. A second plurality of individual phase shifter elements are associated with the individual elements of each subarray. The first plurality of phase shifter elements adjust the illumination and phase of the signal entering each subarray. The second plurality of phase shift elements steer the beam. The array architecture enables varying the aperture taper without incurring significant power loss; and the internal tapering of each subarray to control quantization effects.

Phased array antenna architecture and related method

A laser-based target discriminator system for discriminating desired objects from other objects and clutter in an image scene is disclosed. The system is operative to scan a pulsed laser beam a plurality of times across an image area, the scans covering different juxtaposed strip portions of the image area. Range differential signals are derived from the sensed information of successive laser pulsed echoes of each scan corresponding to the image elements thereof. From the range differential signalling, a binary image map of the image area is generated and converted into a second topological image map having index codes which are derived from predetermined groupings of the binary values of the first image map. Clusters of contiguous image elements are identified from the second image map based on the derived codes of the indices thereof. Desired clusters may be discriminated from the identified clusters based on measured predefined parameters thereof. More specifically, predetermined cluster parameters of at least one known object may be stored in the discriminator system for correlation with the measured parameters of the identified clusters to discriminate the cluster of clusters corresponding to the known object. The position and orientation of the desired object may also be determined by the measured predefined parameters of the clusters and the correlation process associated therewith.

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Marriottsville, MD, United States of America

Peggy J Sowell