The Air Force wishes to develop a capability to focus GPS broadcasts on a specific area of interest, steer to maintain the beam on that area, and provide a minimum of 5 dB higher signal strength. The current fixed beam hemispherical broadcast approach has no way to increase the GPS signal power to a specific area of interest. Syntonics has developed a low cost beam steering solution for its transparent multiband antenna solution. The transparent mutiband antennal design appears invisible outside of its operating band and can be installed to upgrade current systems with minimal RFI/RFC analysis. In Phase One, we will develop an electromagnetically transparent phased array antenna operating at L band (GPS frequencies). This antenna will be capable of beam steering and adjusting coverage area. The entire antenna structure will appear invisible at frequencies outside the operating band. Therefore, the antenna can be placed on the satellite with minimal considerations to RFI and RFC. We conclude by developing a proof of concept and demonstrating, analytically and with breadboard hardware, the feasibility of meeting the Air Forces requirements. The team has already built a prototype electromagnetic transparent antenna array at L band with a fixed steering capability.
Benefits: The anticipated results of a successful Phase I will be a design for a FSS L band antenna with beam steering capabilities. We anticipate the Phase II project will focus on fabricating a fully functioning multiband metasurface antenna operating at L band with beamsteering capabilities. We plan to leverage our knowledge gained from our previous Navy Phase II effort to continue to improve the performance.
Keywords: FSS, GPS, beam steering, circularly polarized, electromagnetically transparent, array, frequency selective surface, metasurface
