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:
May. 18, 2004
Filed:
May. 01, 2002
H. Richard Phelan, Palm Bay, FL (US);
Mark L. Goldstein, Palm Bay, FL (US);
G. Patrick Martin, Merrit Island, FL (US);
Richard J. Nink, Melbourne, FL (US);
Harris Corporation, Melbourne, FL (US);
Abstract
The invention concerns a method and apparatus for cascaded processing of signals in a phased array antenna system in which a plurality of antenna elements are configured as a plurality of sub-arrays. A weighting factor is applied to each of the antenna elements to form a plurality of sub-array beams, each pointed in a selected direction. For each sub-array, an output from each the antenna elements in the sub-array can be combined to produce a sub-array output signal. The sub-array output signals are selectively weighted and combined in a fully adaptive process. Subsequently, the system can estimate an angle-of-arrival direction for a signal-of-interest (“SOI”) and at least one signal-not-of-interest (“SNOI”). Based on this estimating step, the system calculates a new set of weighting factors for controlling one or more of the sub-array beams to improve the signal-to-noise plus interference ratio obtained for the SOI in the array output signal.