TECHNICAL FIELD

Aspects of the disclosure are related to the field of beam-scanning antenna systems, low scan loss at low elevation, and in particular, to flat panel antennas for communication with satellites at any elevation.

BACKGROUND

The global space ground station equipment market is projected to grow at a significant rate, reaching a market value of $119.78 billion by 2024, according to the Jan. 24, 2020 report from Globe Newswire entitled “Global Space Ground Station Equipment Markets to 2024: Focus on Equipment, End-user, Application, and Satellite Communication Service.” Parabolic reflector antennas are most common in today's market. Parabolic reflector antennas, however, include a parabolic reflector that can be costly to manufacture, and, which, in conjunction with the requisite feed system and supporting structure, can result in a bulky and heavy antenna. In some ways, parabolic reflector antennas are becoming increasingly impractical. For example, the shape and form factor of parabolic reflector antennas results in expensive shipping and transportation to different parts of the world.

SUMMARY

One or more embodiments described herein, among other benefits, solve one or more of the foregoing or other problems in the art by providing systems, apparatuses, and methods for providing inexpensive and reusable (or interchangeable) antenna elements combinable into high-performance modular electronically scanned array antenna systems that are configurable for various commercial and consumer beam-scanning communication applications, and are able to communicate with a satellite located at any elevation from 0 to 90 degrees.

In one embodiment, a flat panel array (FPA) antenna includes P user terminal panels (UTPs), each UTP including N user terminal modules (UTMs), together including M user terminal elements (UTEs). The M UTEs include M antennas and M active circuits, the antenna either to generate an incoming signal in response to incident radio waves received from a satellite, or to transmit an outgoing signal toward the satellite, and the active circuit to process the incoming and outgoing signals. The FPA antenna further includes a control circuit to control signal processing performed by the M active circuits. Advantageously, N and M can be adjusted so that an effective antenna area visible to the satellite and a corresponding throughput of a connection thereto can be adjusted to maintain the connection, the satellite being located at any elevation between zero and ninety degrees.

In another embodiment, a satellite antenna system includes M application-agnostic user terminal elements (UTEs), each including an antenna either to generate an incoming signal in response to incident satellite radio waves or to transmit an outgoing signal toward a receiver, such as a satellite or a ground unit. Each UTE further includes active circuitry to process the incoming and outgoing signals. The UTE active circuits are controlled by control circuitry, which controls the processing performed by the M active. In some embodiments, the M UTEs are distributed among N user terminal modules (UTMs), which each include a daisy-chain of O of the M active circuits. An example of such a system is illustrated and described with respect toFIG. 9, showing a satellite antenna system in which M equals 256, and N and O equal 16.

To address the potential quality degradation and signal attenuation that can arise along the stages of the daisy-chain, each UTM further includes a buffer placed after every P active circuits, in order to correct any amplitude degradation that has occurred in the daisy-chain. In other words, a buffer can be placed after every P active circuits in order to correct a signal characteristic that has degraded as the signal traverses the daisy-chain. In other words, a buffer can be placed after every P active circuits in order to correct degradations in signal characteristics. An example of such a UTM is illustrated inFIG. 10, showing a UTM with 16 UTEs, and with a buffer placed between every 16 UTEs.

An advantage of such a system, as disclosed herein, is that because of its modular design, M can be adjusted to adjust a total antenna area and a corresponding signal throughput available to an application. For example, for a satellite antenna system intended for use in an automobile application, M can be set to a lower number than it would be in a more demanding application, such as a bus, an airplane, or a cruise ship. NRE costs are minimized in such systems insofar as the UTEs have been designed in the past and are being reused.

Additional features and advantages of the present application will be set forth in the description which follows, and in part will be obvious from the description, or may be learned by the practice of such example embodiments.

