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US 12,586,924 B2Granted
Antenna system architecture with calibration feedback routing for per element calibration with digital beamformer
AssigneeCesium Astro, Inc.
InventorsTanim Taher, Thomas Magesacher, James Wesley McCoy
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A system may include multiple digital beamformer (DBF) circuits coupled to an analog front end that includes an antenna array. Each DBF circuit is coupled to a subset of the antenna elements of the array. Each DBF may be configured to adjust coefficients of complex multipliers to selectively enable and disable beams, antenna elements, transmit paths, receive paths, or any combination thereof to enable per-element calibration of the antenna array.
Claims23
A system comprises:
- an analog front end circuit that includes an antenna array comprised of a plurality of antenna elements;
- multiple digital beamformer (DBF) circuits coupled to the analog front end, each DBF circuit is coupled to a subset of the plurality of antenna elements, each DBF circuit comprises:
- a plurality of beam modules, each beam module corresponding to the subset of the plurality of antenna elements, each beam module includes a multiplier including a first input to receive data, a second input to receive a complex multiplier, and an output to provide a complex product;
- a controller configured to provide coefficients to each of the complex multipliers independently to selectively enable or disable one or more of a beam, a selected antenna element, a transmit path, or a receive path to determine calibration data or health check data for a selected antenna element of the antenna array;
- a centralized controller configured to communicate to the plurality of the DBF circuits to individually send configuration data to the controller of each DBF circuit and receive one or more of calibration data or health check data from one or more of the multiple DBF circuits;
- and
- a control channel implemented from the centralized controller via input and output (I/O) interfaces to each of the multiple DBF circuits to set the coefficients and orchestrate one of a calibration operation or health check operation.
4 more elements
A system comprising:
- a baseband processing circuit;
- an analog front end circuit coupled to an antenna array including a plurality of antenna elements;
- and
- an integrated circuit including an input/output (I/O) interface coupled to the baseband processing circuit and including a plurality of digital beamformer (DBF) circuits coupled to one another in a daisy-chain configuration, one of the DBF circuits coupled to the I/O interface, each DBF circuit coupled to a subset of the plurality of antenna elements, each DBF circuit comprising:
- a DBF I/O interface configured to couple one of the I/O interface of the integrated circuit or to another DBF circuit of the plurality of DBF circuits;
- a plurality of beam modules, each beam module including a plurality of multipliers and adders, each multiplier configured to receive complex data at a first input, to receive a complex multiplier at a second input, and to provide an output signal corresponding to a product of the complex data and the complex multiplier;
- and
- a controller coupled to each of the plurality of multipliers and configured to provide the complex multiplier to the input of each of the plurality of multipliers, during a calibration operation or a health check operation, the controller configured to selectively activate or deactivate one or more of a beam, a selected antenna element, a transmit path, or a receive path to determine calibration data or health check data for a selected antenna element and to reserve a selected beam for communication of the calibration data or the health check data from the analog front end circuit to the baseband processing circuit.
5 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.