Sampled aperture antenna technology

As suggested by its name, the sampled aperture technique consists of taking time samples of the composite signal arriving at an antenna aperture using a large number of receiving elements. Such a configuration enables advanced signal processing techniques to be applied for optimizing an antenna's performance in complex and demanding environments. Results obtained with a one-dimensional prototype will be presented to highlight some of the concepts. As well, results from a two-dimensional digital beamformer will also be presented. The beamformer is capable of deriving 256 beam-space components at a maximum rate of 312 kHz.