Antenna configuration and system for determining the direction of a radio frequency signal
AssigneeDelfin Systems
InventorsDavid L. Peavey, Katherine A. Tieszen, Timothy D. Stephens, Thomas J. Birnbaum, Fred E. Schader, Nicholas Cianos, John R. Conkle
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An antenna configuration system for determining the bearing angle of a radio frequency signal includes a plurality of loop antennas and at least one sense antenna. Through the utilization of combining networks with the loop antennas, in-phase and out-of-phase output signals are summed with the signal from the one sense antenna. The summed signal is sent to an adaptive processing system to allow for the determination the bearing angle of the radio frequency signal.
Claims13
A system for determining the bearing angle of a frequency (RF) signal comprising:
- an antenna system;
- the antenna system further comprising:
- at least one sense antenna for receiving the RF signal;
- a plurality of loop antennas for receiving the RF signal;
- a plurality of means for providing two output signals;
- one of the plurality of providing means being coupled to one of the plurality of loop antennas;
- means for commutating between the plurality of output signals providing means to provide a summed and sampled RF signal, the commutating means providing commutation induced phase and amplitude modulation to the RF signal;
- and
- a processor system, the processor system further comprising:
- means for converting the sampled and modulated RF signal to an intermediate frequency (IF) signal, the IF signal including the commutation induced phase and amplitude modulation;
- means for detecting the IF signal;
- and
- means responsive to the detecting means for removing the commutation induced phase and amplitude modulation from the IF signal whereby the bearing angle of the RF signal is determined.
An apparatus for determining the bearing angle of a radio frequency (RF) signal comprising:
- at least one sense antenna for receiving the RF signal;
- a plurality of loop antennas for receiving the RF signals;
- a switch for commutating between the plurality of loop antennas to provide a sampled RF signal, the switch providing commutation induced phase and amplitude modulation to the RF signal;
- a vector modulation means for modulating the sampled and modulated RF signals from the at least one sense antenna element and the plurality of loop antennas to an intermediate frequency (IF) signal, the IF signal including the commutation induced phase and amplitude modulation;
- means for detecting the IF signal;
- and
- a processor responsive to the detecting means for adaptively removing the commutation induced phase and amplitude modulation from the IF signal whereby the bearing angle of the RF signal is determined.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.