Rotman Lens Development at the Army Research Lab

Abstract

An electronic scanning antenna (ESA) that uses a beamformer for scanning the beam has the advantage of being able to form multiple beams for multimode, shared-aperture applications. This scanning approach is achieved at a reduced parts count for the antenna subassembly and therefore at a lower cost than approaches utilizing phase-shifting elements for controlling the beam. This paper discusses our efforts to realize such a beamformer using Rotman lens geometry and details some of the technologies we investigated as well as some engineering tradeoffs encountered