PLANAR, FRACTAL, TIME-DELAY BEAMFORMER

摘要

An antenna beamformer is disclosed that uses controllable time delay elements distributed in a planar fractal feed network between the input port and multiple output ports. The use of time delay elements, rather than phase shifting elements, allows the beamformer to maintain a constant steering angle independent of frequencies over a broad range of frequencies. In addition, fewer control signals are used to control all of the time delay elements due to distributing the time delay elements throughout the fractal feed network, rather than grouping the delay elements near the output ports.