Phase arrays exploiting geometry phase and methods of creating such arrays
OwnerDennis Willard Davis, Phillip David Neumiller +1inventors
InventorsDennis Willard Davis, Phillip David Neumiller, Jaime R. Román
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
In the context of array sensors such as radar, sonar, and communications receiver arrays, the present invention exploits the geometry phase components of radiated wavefronts associated with the signals of interest in order to reduce the bandwidth requirements for DOA and beamforming processing. Additionally, geometry phase is exploited in order to effectively increase the resolution of an array without changing the size of its physical footprint or the number of array elements. Other embodiments of the invention include the use of virtual array elements for increase in effective array size.
Claims11
A method of creating a geometry phase processing-based phased array of receiving elements comprising the steps of:
- a) extracting the geometry phase associated with each of a plurality of remote emitting sources received by each said element of said array;
- and
- b) scaling said geometry phase to improve properties of the array taken from the group comprising (i) increase in the angular resolution of said array and (ii) reduction in the physical size of said array.
A method of creating a geometry phase processing-based phased array of receiving elements comprising the steps of:
- a) estimating the geometry phase of each said remote emitting source using direction of arrival estimation methods;
- and
- b) scaling said geometry phase to improve properties of the array taken from the group comprising (i) increase in the angular resolution of said array and (ii) reduction in the physical size of said array.
A method of creating a geometry phase processing-based phased array of receiving elements comprising the steps of:
- a) providing an array with an initial number of active receiving elements;
- b) extracting the geometry phase associated with each of a plurality of remote emitting sources received by each said element of said array;
- c) scaling said geometry phase to reduce said initial number of said active receiving elements while substantially maintaining the resolution of said array.
A phased array sensor comprising:
- a) a collection of array receiving elements, receiving energy from at least one remote source;
- b) means for extracting the geometry phase associated with each said element attributable to each said remote source;
- and
- c) means for scaling said geometry phase to proportionally increase the resolution of said array.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.