Operating Modes and Dynamic Range of Active Space-Fed Arrays With Digital Beamforming

Narrow band space-fed (lens) scanning arrays have played a major role in many military and commercial applications. However, wider bandwidth space-fed arrays with phase shifters in the objective aperture, and subarrayed time delay have not found many ready applications because of network losses, complexity, and more recently because of a perceived incompatibility with active solid state module technology. This paper demonstrates that a feed array with transmit/receive (T/R) modules and digitally reconfigured control, can accommodate both narrow band and radiation with relatively efficient use of the active sources