Phased Array Hardening and Swarming Enabled by Hybrid Mixed-Signal Adaptive Beamforming Systems - b.ii.4 Solid State and Electronics with the TPOC: Dr. Joe Qiu
Abstract
The Pennsylvania State University proposes a new applied research program focused on Phased Array Hardening and Swarming Enabled by Hybrid Mixed-Signal Adaptive Beamforming Systems. The primary technical objective of this program is to investigate advanced engineering design strategies for phased arrays in both conformal and disparate array topologies that integrate analog beamforming processes into a digital beamforming network. The goal is to provide scientific insight on the use of a mixed analog-digital approach to beamforming and its ability to leverage the complementary performance attributes of these two techniques in a hybrid approach that enhances the resilience of phased antenna arrays to electronic attack. Thus in addition to characterizing the fundamental performance attributes using a hybrid mixed-signal approach this project also seeks to evaluate the use of the hybrid system in the presence of a strong interference or jamming signal to understand the potential vulnerabilities and effectiveness of hybrid adaptive beamforming measures. A rapid prototyping system for hybrid beamforming experiments will be used to accomplish these goals; it combines state-of-the-art off-the-shelf software-defined radio technologies with modular analog components that can be swapped to create tiers of sub-arrays or other beamforming topologies that merge the flexibility of baseband processing in digital beamforming techniques with the physical superposition at the carrier frequency in analog beamforming systems. The project has three major technical objectives that define the scope of work in each year of the project. In the first year the goals is to stand up the digital beamforming system using software-defined radios. Each of these channels will have independent phase and amplitude control at baseband using the software defined radio and at the carrier level through the addition of electronically controlled phase shifters and attenuators attached in series to each of the sixteen or thirty-two channels. The milestone for this performance period will be the counter-steering of a phased array in both transmit and receive modes to evaluate the ability of the digital system to counteract effect of the analog components and stabilize the radiation pattern behavior as the analog components attempt to electronically steer the beam. This will validate the performance of the beamforming system and provide key insight into the interaction between the analog and digital beamforming systems. In the second year of the project the beamforming system will be subjected to a jamming source outside of the main beam of the array, and the goal will be to study the performance of the digital beamforming system with and without the augmentation of analog beamforming process to provide spatial signal processing as a precursor to the baseband processing. The milestone for this performance period will be the angular pattern measurement of bit error rate for the system in analog-only and digital-only configurations as well as in a hybrid adaptive state when a null will be created using both analog and digital techniques provide a hybrid approach. In the third and final year of this project a computer-vision assisted adaptive control system will be evaluated with the beamforming network to study the behavior of motion-dynamic disparate arrays to study the beamforming capabilities of swarming UAV clusters in analog, digital, and hybrid modes similar to the periodic array(s) used in the first two years of the project. The milestone for this performance period will be the experimental evaluation of the swarming system that studies the impact of a strong interferer as it passes through the formation of a peaking sidelobe of the unstructured array while its topology changes. The goal of these unique experimental campaigns is intended to provide a key perspective on the electronic warfare and cybersecurity capabilities and vulnerabilities of these systems.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Jul 09, 2020
- Source ID
- W911NF2010092
Entities
People
- Gregory H Huff
Organizations
- Army Contracting Command
- Pennsylvania State University
- United States Army