Feasibility Study of a Wirelessly Controlled and Powered Space-Fed Phased Array Antenna

Abstract

A space-fed X-band phased array antenna (PAA) is presented. The space-fed PAA uses physically autonomous individually addressable unit cells as the building blocks of an arbitrarily large array antenna. The X-band PAA unit cell consists of both a feed facing printed antenna element and a target facing printed antenna element. These elements are related by an RF phase shifter placed in the RF signal path between them which introduces relative phase delay and enables analog beam forming. Unit cell autonomy is realized by wirelessly transferring power and command signals required to operate a microcontroller (MCU) and the RF phase shifter at each unit cell. Each unit cell includes RF to DC conversion circuitry as well as an MCU designed to interpret a common control signal and command unit cell phase delay. The wireless phased array unit cell can be replicated in configurations of size and shape that are independent of RF, power, and array module control distribution networks. To demonstrate feasibility a four-element wireless PAA is constructed and antenna patterns for various control states are shown.