Chinese
Chinese
Chinese
Radar Technology
Zhang Guangyi
Nanjing Research Institute of Electronics Technology
P.0.Box 13 15 ,Nanjing, 210013, PRC
Abstract - This paper describes the main research work of transmission loss from antenna radiators to high power/low noise
W E T in phased array radar, digital beamforming, low sidelobe amplifiers and to improve reliability of PAR system. By now, a
phased array antenna and comformal array antenna. Some research series of TA7 modules at UHF, L,S,C frequency band have been
results in this field also described. developed. Two L-band T/R module prototypes are shown in Fig. 1
introduction and Fig.2.
0-7803-3232-6/96/$5.00 0 1 9 9 6 IEEE 78
system. Low sidelobe phased array antenna
The detection range of YLC-4 is more than 300km. The target
processing capability is IO0 batches. Some intensive efforts have been made in theoretical and practical
study to acquire low-sidelobe phase array antenna. Both amplitude
Digital beam fonning(DBF) technique and phase weighting are used.
In the study performed by Dr. Go and his colleagues in W E T ,
DBF technique is very promising to realize new type of PAR with some research on phase shifters and amplitude quantization have
higher functional capabilities than conventional ones as combining been done.
the phased array antenna theory with advanced real-time signal For one bit digital phase shifter, we can use it to reduce the
processing technique Since the early 198O's, we have paid much sidelobe level of the phased array ani:enna. For a linear array of 128
attention to this technique. The preliminary efforts are concentrated elements, the highest sidelobe level is-18.8dB which is obtained
to form multiple receiving beams with flexible shape. The real time from 1000 random samples. For a h e a r array of 256 elements. It is
adaptive space-time 2D signal processing €or PAR is the key -20.2dB. The decreased gain is about 1-2dB due to the inversed
research topic now. An APAR test bed with digital beamforming phases.
capability has been developed The main specifications of this test For two bit digital phase shifter, we can use it to steer the
bed are given below: mainbeam and reduce the sidelobe level. When there are more than
Frequency band L band two bits in the phase shifter, the nulls can be set up in given
polarization Horizontal directions in the antenna pattems.
Number of array radiators 16x36 If the random quantization are applied to the most low bit in the
Phase shifter 5 bits digital phase shifter, the quantiza1:ion lobe and the mainbeam
Number of receiver channels 16 deviation due to the phase quantizatitm can be reduced. We can use
The experimental DBF antenna patterns obtained from the test bed two probable value method.
are shown in Fig.3 and Fig.4. For amplitude quantization research, we proposed the multistep
quantization method. In a design, the sidelobe level of-35.5dB is
obtained.
For phased array antenna with amplitude weighting by commonly
used methods computer-aided designing with considering the
mutual coupling between antenna elements, stringent control of
production tolerance and precise .measuring and calibrating the
amplitude and phase deviation, the maximum sidelobe level is less
than-30dB. The measured sidelobe level of a L-band phased array
antenna is show in Fig.5.
zol ll
v-
20
-30
-40 -
0 -50 -
-20
-40
Fig.5 SLL of L-banc PAA antenna
-60
-100 -50 0 50 100 Conformal phased .Irray antenna
Fig.4 Difference pattern for 16 channel receivers The study of conformal phase army antenna is an important of
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PAR research work in NRIET. It is intended to explore the theory References
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-30 -60 -30 0 30 60 90
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Fig 7 Measured Pattern of 16-element Confomial Array for
Five Beams
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