V.V. Zadorozhnyy1, A.Yu. Larin2, A.V. Litvinov3, A.S. Mit’kin4

1–4 FSUE «RNIIRS» (Rostov-on-Don, Russia)

1 vladimir@resonance.ru

The development of modern radio electronic systems causes an increase in the requirements for the parameters of antenna devices (AU) and causes the transition from previously used mirror antennas and passive phased array antennas (FAA) to active FAA (AFAA), the considerable advantage of which is a significant reduction in energy losses of transmitted and received signals by reducing the distance of the low-noise amplifier input and output of power amplifier to the antenna element. Further development of the AU is the transition from AFAA with analog beamforming to digital antenna arrays (DAR) with digital beamforming, the advantages of which are due to the possibility of forming multibeam receiving and transmitting radiation patterns  with independent control of the direction and shape of the beams, as well as the possibility of flexible change of operating modes.

The use of a DAR with two-dimensional electronic scanning provides a significant increase in the efficiency of radio-electronic systems. Thus, their use in radar provides a gain in the efficiency of using the time, energy, frequency and spatial resources of radar with CAR up to 13 times compared with radar with passive FAA and AFAA with one-dimensional scanning.

The disadvantages of the DAR are the high cost and increased energy consumption due to the installation of active elements in each transceiver channel, as well as the long time required to create new products, associated with a large amount of software and a complex structure for building a CAR. To overcome these disadvantages, manufacturers of antenna arrays and developers of the radio-electronic element base are creating new technical solutions.

The main directions of development of technologies for the production of DAR functional devices that reduce the cost and reduce the time needed to create new products are shown: the development of common modules that allow you to create scalable DAR, increasing the integration of microwave monolithic integrated circuits with the placement of the maximum number of transceiver channels on one chip, increasing the integration of ASIC, including ADCs, DACs and digital signal processing devices, increasing the clock frequencies of digital functional nodes, as well as the development of circuit solutions for building nodes with low energy consumption.

Zadorozhnyy V.V., Larin A.Yu., Litvinov A.V., Mit’kin A.S. The main directions of enhancement of digital antenna arrays. Achievements of modern radioelectronics. 2024. V. 78. № 6. P. 62–78. DOI: https://doi.org/10.18127/j20700784-202406-07 [in Russian]

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