The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Dec. 07, 1999
Filed:
May. 19, 1998
Ronald R Stephens, Westlake Village, CA (US);
Jar J Lee, Irvine, CA (US);
Abstract
Antenna structures are provided which facilitate the simultaneous radiation of multiple antenna beams. The structures include photonic manifolds that define equal-length optical paths and other optical paths whose lengths progressively change by a selected length .DELTA.L. The manifolds conduct signal pairs to radiative modules. Each signal pair includes a frequency-swept scanning signal s.sub.s and a reference signal s.sub.r whose frequency is a selected one of the sum and the difference of the frequencies of the scanning signal s.sub.s and a respective operating signal s.sub.o. Subsequently, the scanning signals are mixed with the reference signals and filtered to recover phase-shifted versions of each respective operating signal s.sub.o. The phase-shifted versions are radiated to form multiple radiated beams wherein each beam is scanned by changing the frequency of its respective scanning signal s.sub.s. The frequency of the scanning signals is selected to avoid generation of spurious radiated signals. This selection includes choosing the scanning signals so that each has a different integer number of 2.pi. phase shifts over the path length .DELTA.L. Methods of the invention permit the use of a common mixer and a common filter at each radiative module for processing all signal pairs.