HYBRID ELECTRONIC/MECHANICAL SCANNING ARRAY ANTENNA

摘要

A hybrid electronic/mechanical scanning array antenna including an outer housing and a cold plate rotatable therein. A waveguide aperture including an array of antenna elements is mounted to a top surface of the cold plate and a multi-layer circuit board is mounted to a bottom surface of the cold plate. A plurality of amplifier modules are mounted to the cold plate, where the circuit board includes a plurality of openings that allow the amplifier modules to be directly mounted to the cold plate, and the cold plate includes a plurality of RF signal channels that allow RF signals from the amplifier modules to travel through the cold plate. The amplifier modules are controlled to provide phase-weighting for electronic signal scanning in an elevation direction and rotation of the cold plate allows signal scanning in an azimuth direction.

主权项

1. A scanning array antenna comprising:
an outer housing; a cold plate rotatably mounted within and relative to the outer housing, said cold plate including a top surface and a bottom surface; a waveguide aperture including an array of antenna elements mounted to the top surface of the cold plate; a multi-layer circuit board mounted to the bottom surface of the cold plate; and a plurality of amplifier modules mounted to the cold plate through the circuit board, said circuit board including a plurality of openings that allow the amplifier modules to be directly mounted to the cold plate through the circuit board, said cold plate including a plurality of RF signal channels that allow RF signals from the amplifier modules to travel through the cold plate to the antenna elements, wherein the plurality of amplifier modules are controlled to provide phase weighting for electronic signal scanning in an elevation direction and rotation of the cold plate allows signal scanning in an azimuth direction.