The Boeing Company

Boeing Aerospace and Electronics

Sperry H Goodman

John P Braun

Gary E Miller

James P Grady

Richard W Carlson

Scott L Badger

A lightweight phased array antenna systems that is conformable to an aircraft fuselage combines air-filled cavity-backed slots with printed circuit elements for operation in two or more frequency bands. The printed circuit elements are separated from a conductive ground plane in which the slots are cut by a dielectric honeycomb material. The slots and printed circuit elements are individually excitable by a multiband feed network and transmit/receive modules for operation in the UHF band and S band or L band, respectively.

Multiband shared aperture array antenna system

An antenna having decreased sidelobes relative to the mainlobe. In the preferred embodiments, the antenna reduces sidelobes by using the sidelobes within an array to cancel the sidelobes of a corresponding, symmetrically related, array.

System and method of shaping an antenna radiation pattern

A method for determining the phase delay of microwave energy passing through a dielectric material, and for determining values related to the dielectric constant for microwave circuit boards. Phase delay is determined by positioning a pair of transducers adjacent different surfaces of the dielectric material, and injecting microwave energy at a certain frequency along a path through the material from the first transducer to the second transducer. The frequency of microwave radiation is that frequency at which S.sub.11 and S.sub.22 for the transducers are both less than a selected amount. Where the dielectric material is a conductively surfaced microwave circuit board, the path through the material is from one edge of the board to another edge through the plane of the board. Microwave circuit boards may be tested by determining values related to the dielectric constant for a plurality of such paths through the board, the paths consisting of a first group of mutually parallel paths and a second group of mutually parallel paths oriented to intersect the paths of the first group. For each path, measurements are made at the frequency or frequencies determined as described above. Iterative methods are also provided for estimating such values for areas of the microwave circuit board consisting of the intersection of one path from each group.

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Kent, WA, United States of America

Sperry H Goodman