The concept of a fully electronic beamforming antenna array for modern radar systems

Abstract In this article the concept of a fully electronic beamforming antenna array for radar systems based on a SDR architecture is proposed and experimentally evaluated in an anechoic chamber. The system uses 2 software defined radio (SDR) transceivers with 4 independently controlled transmitters, allowing an individual digital control of both amplitude and phase of the signal fed to each element of an antenna array. It is also proposed a beamforming method that greatly reduces the sidelobes of the radiation pattern and it was compared to traditional beam steered radiation patterns. Moreover, the proposed architecture has the advantage of being modular, and therefore easily scalable, for larger and more powerful solutions based on the presented antenna array system.