Digital beamforming radar system

A method of making a low-cost, efficient low-noise block converter for use in a digital beamforming radar receiver comprising the steps of:

• providing a commercially available low-noise block converter used in satellite television systems;
• modifying the commercially available low-noise block converter to disable a local oscillator circuit, the local oscillator circuit being internal to the commercially available low-noise block converter;
• and
• providing a local oscillator input, the local oscillator input being electrically coupled to a mixer, the mixer being internal to the commercially available low-noise block converter, the local oscillator input enabling a local oscillator signal to be externally inputted to the mixer.

A method of making a digital beamforming radar system comprising the steps of:

• making a receiver comprising the steps of:
• coupling a plurality of antenna elements to a plurality of low-noise block converters, at least one of the plurality of antenna elements being adapted to receive a radar signal and output a received signal, at least one of the plurality of low-noise block converters being including an amplifier, a mixer and a local oscillator input and being responsive to the received signal from a corresponding antenna element, the at least one of the plurality of low-noise block converters outputting an intermediate frequency signal, the local oscillator input being adapted to enable a local oscillator signal to be externally inputted to the low-noise block converter and the mixer being responsive to the local oscillator signal;
• coupling the plurality of low-noise block converters to at least one analog-to-digital converter, the at least one analog-to-digital converter being responsive to the intermediate frequency signal of a corresponding low-noise block converter and outputting a digital signal;
• and
• coupling the at least one analog-to-digital converter to a processor responsive to the digital signal of the at least one analog-to-digital converter.