Raytheon Company

Thomas A Drake

Kenneth William Brown

Thomas Lee Obert

A high power slide tuning capacitor ( ) integrated into a circuit board adapted to function at RF and microwave frequencies. The capacitor ( ) includes a dielectric substrate ( ) with a cavity ( ) cut into a side of the substrate ( ); a ground plane ( ) mounted on a bottom surface of the dielectric substrate ( ); a microstrip patch ( ) mounted on a top surface of the dielectric substrate ( ) and positioned above the cavity ( ); and a movable dielectric stub ( ) which engages the cavity ( ) such that a variable length of the stub ( ) is positioned beneath the microstrip patch ( ). The microstrip patch ( ) can be coupled to a desired circuit trace ( ), effectively forming a shunt capacitor to ground.

High power variable slide RF tuner

An antenna that includes a housing having a plurality of walls forming an enclosure, a slot formed in a first wall of the housing, and, a folded cavity formed in a second wall of the housing opposite the first wall. The folded cavity is preferably a compound cavity that includes a first cavity portion and a second cavity portion joined around their entire respective peripheries by a fold or shelf. Any convenient RF transmission line, e.g., a waveguide or coaxial cables, can be used to inject RF energy into the folded cavity. In certain embodiments, both the width and length of the housing are each less than &frac12; of a free-space wavelength, and the antenna is capable of producing very accurate circular polarization and is capable of handling very high power levels, e.g., 10 kW, thereby making it suitable for high power applications which require extremely compact antenna elements, e.g., wide-scan phased array antennas.

Folded cavity-backed slot antenna

A common aperture reflector antenna and feed are provided for use in common aperture sensor systems. The feed includes an array of individual elements. The array elements are configured to increase the overall efficiency of a reflector antenna by flattening the aperture illumination, and also by nullifying the illumination within the centrally-blocked-portion of the reflector antenna surface. More specifically, the array elements are carefully configured with respect to spacing and excitation, for example, such that the array illuminates only the non-blocked portion of the main reflector. In addition, the array pattern is optimized such that the non-blocked portion of the reflector antenna is quasi-uniformly illuminated.

Growing community of inventors

Yucaipa, CA, United States of America

Thomas A Drake