Active Antenna Module for Low-Cost Electronically Scanned Phased Arrays

This paper describes a low-cost compact active antenna module that includes transmit/receive/mixer electronics and a dual-polarized antenna element for half-duplex operation at 10 GHz. The system-in-package module has been fabricated in a ball-grid-array package. It is particularly suited for large low-cost low-power phased-array applications. Measurements at IF of single element gain show cross-pol reduced 18 dB. A small compact array was fabricated and measured. Simulations show that coupling between modules in a tightly packed infinite array caused a small reduction in scan range.