Multiport DF antennas and DF systems
AssigneeApplied Signals Intelligence, Inc.
InventorsJohn W. McCorkle, Timothy R. Miller
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A multi-port antenna and associated systems having extremely wide bandwidth and capable of maintaining directivity as frequency decreases and is made arbitrarily low, allowing DF systems to operate to arbitrarily low frequency regardless of size. Construction may be rugged, lightweight, and low cost, allowing reliable service in harsh environments. The systems allow utilization of both the E and H fields occupying a common area of space. The disclosed DF system takes advantage of knowledge of the as-installed array manifold, uses pattern matching to determine the angle of arrival (AoA) of incoming waves, and enhances sensitivity by using integration on cross-correlation products between the multiple ports to achieve SNR improvement.
Claims13
A DF system having an output, the DF system comprising:
- an antenna system comprising at least two ports that sense emissions from an RF emitter;
- a receiving system;
- and
- an estimator system,
- wherein the antenna system is configured to output a signal from each of its at least two ports and sense a combination of one or more E-field signals and one or more H-field signals from the RF emitter, in a common volume of space,
- the antenna system comprising M conductive pieces with N ports, each port having two terminals attached to different ones of the two or more conductive pieces,
- wherein each conductive piece attaches to a terminal from two or more ports, [and]
- wherein the volume of space enclosed by a current loop through the N ports and two conductive pieces, is in common with the volume of space holding an electric charge between the M conductive pieces, and
- wherein the estimator system comprises at least two parallel processors in parallel, and wherein each processor is tasked to run vectorized operations.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.