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This paper presents a unique design concept for a dual-frequency,electronically steerable, MM-wave phased array antenna using Monolithic Microwave Integrated Circuit (MMIC) technology. Such an antenna design will be found most attractive for satellite communication and missile seeker applications, where size, weight and power consumption are the most stringent requirements. The block diagram of a dual-frequency (20 GHz/30 GHz), electronically steerable, phased array antenna using MMIC technology is shown in Figure 1. Specific details on the critical RF components are also shown in Figure 1. Because of the location of the radiating elements on the hemispherical surface, the antenna is inherently capable of providing electronic scanning over 360 deg. in AZ-plane and over plus/minus 60 deg. in EL-plane. This electronically steerable phased array antenna will generate multiple beams in the AZ-plane with consistent bandwidth and pattern symmetry. This design exploits true integration of printed circuit antenna technology, GaAs active device technology, MM-wave microstrip technology and printed circuit time delay phase shifting element technology. This design employs microstrip periodic structure transmission line sections as time delay phasing elements, which requires no input power. The printed circuit microstrip line sections will be used as feed networks. Two distinct dual- frequency, antenna element fabrication techniques, namely, stacked-patch element (Figure 2a) and collocated, interleaved-patch element (Figure 2b), were investigated in terms of cost, size, performance and complexity. Tradeoff studies performed seem to indicate that stacked-patch element approach will offer minimum size and weight. The physical dimensions shown in Figure 1 and 2 are computed for 20 GHz and 30 GHz operations. All the electronics, control circuits and RF MMIC circuits can be located within the hemispherical structure. The input power, overall system size and weight will depend on the antenna gain requirement, inter-element spacing, number of elements and phase shifter types. It is important to mention that delay line phasing networks using printed circuit periodic structures will provide optimum flexibility in phasing of the antenna elements with minimum loss. The proposed antenna architecture for a dual-frequency operation using a common aperture and MMIC technology seems to offer an antenna system with minimum cost, size, weight and power consumption.
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