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"Inventing For Tomorrow"
BEAMFORMING
Direction Finding (DF) & selective spatial filtering isolation
ABOUT
In today's ever increasing density in the Radio Frequency spectrum, the challenge is keeping signal integrity as high as possible. When frequency diversity is heavily utilized (or exhausted), then spatial diversity becomes the next avenue of implementation.
THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS
GENERAL NOTE
At ARS products, we believe that understanding the theoretical underpinnings of our technology is not only imperative for designing robust systems that maintain functionality and performance in various electromagnetic environments, but equally valuable for our customers to understand in order to make informed decisions about their purchases, particularly regarding scope, purpose, and function. While our team of experts help guide and tailor solutions based on the varying needs of our customers throughout the product development and manufacturing process, we are passionate about highlighting both the capabilities and potential limitations of RF systems from a theoretical standpoint.
introduction
Beamforming and Beamsteering Networks are sub systems that are used for manipulating phase and spatial interactions. These units are typically adjacent to an antenna array. Passive variants include beamformers and Butler Matrices. Active variants usually use controllable phase shifters or controllable delay lines.
ARS Products designs and manufactures specialized phase and amplitude control sub-systems for RF signal manipulation. Our products can be used for individual feed manipulation (phase shifters or amplitude modulators), or at the beam culminating point (beamformer).
ARS PRODUCTS key beamformer differentiatorS
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FREQUENCY COVERAGE:
From fractional to multiple octave bandwidths.
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POWER HANDLING:
From sensitive receive levels to kilowatt transmit levels.
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ARCHITECTURE:
Able to re-implement designs, changing between quadrature and sum/difference implementations.
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MEDIUMS:
Stripline, microstrip, and high permeability materials such ass ferrite and powdered iron.
EVOLUTION OF SOLUTIONS
Originally developed for Direction Finding (DF) and energy focusing applications, beamforming has taken on the additional roles of multiple beam differentiation (complex DF for receiving and selective steerable beams for excitation, and in some bases both).
Over the years, ARS Products has also added peripherals, pre-amps, power amps, detection and beam selectors around the beamformer to enhance integration.
APPLICATION
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Direction Finding (DF) with Spatial Signal Supression
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Allows the user to change the pattern in real time
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Can also be used for transmission
DYNAMIC BEAMFORMING
MODE PATTERNS
ADDITIONAL CONSIDERATIONS
[Before going into the classes of frequency selective reduction, let us discuss another condition. That is the transient condition, the event that occurs when the Interferer becomes present (active).
During this transition the receiver may become deaf while the mitigation equipment deals with applying a selective reduction device. This will take some time. This is particularly painful if the mitigation system uses the main receiver.
A device to deal with the transient case is the Non-Reflective Limiter (NRL). During the transient, the NRL proportionately attenuates the spectrum to keep the receiver out the over-range condition. Meanwhile the system is still receiving and deploying the appropriate selective reduction device. Once the selective reduction is in place, the NRL releases (no attenuation) and returns to high sensitivity reception.]
