The Calibration of Four-Arm Spiral Modal Measurements for Angle-of-Arrival Determination (Preprint)

Abstract

Direction Finding (DF) systems have long been an area of intense research within the Air Force Research Laboratory. There are presently two types of existing DF systems: wideband multi-mode antennas and interferometers. Wideband multi-mode DF systems allow for a large bandwidth but present a low resolution and high variance. Interferometers provide high accuracy and low variance but are narrow band and require a large number of single aperture antenna elements. An effort has commenced to incorporate a broadband DF system with high resolution using two multi-mode spiral antennas. Using an interferometer of multi-mode elements, we can provide high resolution and wideband operation without using numerous antennas. This paper presents the results of extensive wideband measurements carried out on a four-arm spiral antenna and the associated modeformer. These measurements are used to assess and validate the angle estimation capability of the multi-arm spiral antenna.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jul 01, 2006
Accession Number
ADA456468

Entities

People

  • Joshua S. Radcliffe
  • Krishna M. Pasala
  • Stephen W. Schneider

Organizations

  • Air Force Research Laboratory

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Air Platforms
  • Materials and Manufacturing Processes
  • Sensors
  • Space

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Accuracy
  • Air Force
  • Air Force Research Laboratories
  • Angle Of Arrival
  • Antennas
  • Bandwidth
  • Calibration
  • Direction Finding
  • Frequency
  • Frequency Bands
  • Governments
  • Interferometers
  • Measurement
  • Measuring Instruments
  • Military Research
  • Phase Measurement
  • Spiral Antennas

Fields of Study

  • Engineering

Readers

  • Phased Array Antenna Design.
  • Systems Analysis and Design