Circular polarized phased array with wideband axial ratio bandwidth using sequential rotation and dynamic phase recovery

A phased array antenna comprising:

• a substrate;
• a plurality of circular polarized wideband antenna elements (hereinafter referred to as elements) disposed on the substrate, wherein each element comprises two planar feeds that are disposed on the substrate and orthogonal to each other in order to generate right-hand circular polarization (RHCP) or left-hand circular polarization (LHCP), wherein each element has a center axis that is perpendicular to a surface of the substrate;
• a feeder network coupled to the feeds;
• wherein the plurality of elements is divided into first, second, and third subsets, wherein the first subset consists of elements that are rotated about their respective center axes by 0°, the second subset consists of elements that are rotated about their respective center axes by 120°, and the third subset consists of elements that are rotated about their respective center axes by 240°;
• wherein the plurality elements is arranged in a lattice such that any triangular grouping of three neighboring elements in the lattice will include an element from the first, second, and third subsets such that RHCP or LHCP is enabled and reinforced both by the orthogonal feed disposition of each individual element and by the triangular groupings of elements that are each rotated by 120° with respect to each other;
• a phase shifter communicatively coupled to the feeds through the feeder network such that each feed has an equal path length to the phase shifter, wherein the phase shifter is configured to electronically and dynamically compensate for phase regression or progression introduced by one or both of:
• any phase offset in the feeder network and the sequential rotation of the elements without relying on physical transmission lines of different dimensions, wherein the phase shifter is further configured to introduce a progressive phase shift across a beam steering plane to enable beam steering of the phased array antenna.

A phased array antenna comprising:

• a substrate;
• a plurality of circular polarized wideband antenna elements (hereinafter referred to as elements) disposed on the substrate, wherein each element comprises two feeds that are orthogonal to each other such that each element is able to generate circular polarized signals, thereby creating a first layer of rotation;
• wherein the elements are arranged with respect to each other to form a lattice consisting of six triangular subarrays disposed proximate to each other in a hexagon formation, wherein each given triangular subarray consists of three unique elements positioned with respect to each other as vertices of the given triangular subarray such that each of the three elements of the given triangular subarray is rotated by 120° about its element axis with respect to every other element in the given triangular subarray thereby forming a second layer of rotation;
• wherein each triangular subarray is sequentially rotated about a triangle centroid axis by 60° with respect to neighboring triangular subarrays in the hexagon formation thereby forming a third layer of rotation;
• a phase shifter communicatively coupled to the feeds of all the elements and configured to electronically and dynamically compensate for phase regression or progression introduced by the sequential rotation of the elements without relying on physical transmission lines of different dimensions, wherein the phase shifter is further configured to introduce a progressive phase shift across a beam steering plane to enable beam steering of the phased array antenna.