Raytheon Company

Robert P Zagrodnick

Irl W Smith

Edward A Geyh

L E Brunel

James E Rhein

A phased array antenna having an array of antenna elements, an array of phase shifter sections, each one thereof being associated with a corresponding one of the antenna elements, and a cold-plate having a pair of surfaces, one of the surfaces having the array of phase shifter sections mounted, and thermally coupled, thereto and an opposite one of the pair of surfaces having thermally conductive posts projecting outwardly therefrom, each one of the posts being disposed behind a corresponding one of the plurality of mounted phase shifter sections. A heat sink plate is thermally coupled to distal ends of the posts. The cold-plate has a plurality of feeds passing therethrough. The phased array antenna includes a power/radio frequency energy distribution section mounted to said opposite one of the pair of cold plate surfaces for distributing power and radio frequency energy among the phase shifter sections mounted to the cold plate. The radio frequency energy distribution section comprises a plurality of stacked printed circuit boards and the posts pass through the stacked printed circuit boards to the heat sink plate and radio frequency energy is coupled to the phase shifter section though coupling power dividers and slots provided in the stacked, power/radio frequency energy distribution section printed circuit boards. An array of antenna elements is provided having an array of patch radiators. A conductive layer is provided having an array of cavities disposed therein, each one of the patch radiators being disposed over an associated one of the cavities.

Phased array antenna

A phased array antenna system having an array of antenna elements coupled to radio frequency energy feed network through a plurality of phase shifter sections with digital control data being fed to the phase shifter sections with radio frequency energy signal modulated with the digital control data. A modulator is fed by the source of the radio frequency energy and a modulating signal to produce the modulated radio frequency energy signal. A modulating signal generator/encoder, fed by the digital control data, encodes each bit of such digital control data into the modulating signal, such modulating signal being a bipolar signal having a pair of electrical signal changes corresponding to a binary state represented by such bit. The modulated radio frequency energy signal may be fed to the demodulator through the radio frequency feed network or through the antenna element coupled thereto. The demodulator section produces a demodulated bipolar signal corresponding to the bipolar modulating signal and decodes the demodulated bipolar signal into a binary signal having logic states corresponding to the binary states represented by the encoded bits of the bipolar modulating signal. An output section is fed by the detector and decoder section for converting the binary signal produced by the detector and decoder section into the digital words for the phase shifter section. The digital control data includes a strobe signal. The plurality of phase shifter sections act to properly configure themselves to radio frequency energy passing therethrough in accordance with control words addressed thereto in response to detection of the strobe signal.

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Chelmsford, MA, United States of America

Robert P Zagrodnick