Physical Optics Corporation — Department of Defense SBIR Phase I: To address the Air Force need for conformal passive and active antennas for an unmanned ai

Description

To address the Air Force need for conformal passive and active antennas for an unmanned aircraft system (UAS), Physical Optics Corporation (POC) proposes to develop a new Quasi-Optically Scanned Conformal Antenna (QOSCA), based on a quasi-optical beamforming, non-planar, reconfigurable antenna design, and individual element excitation. Innovations in controlling the time delays of the signals from or to the array element will enable the QOSCA to perform wideband, all-angle beamforming and steering without detrimental beam squinting as the frequency increases. As a result, the QOSCA system offers a conformal antenna that can operate VHFKu frequency bands, i.e., 0.0318GHz, with a tuning range of 10% of the carrier frequency, making it suitable for SATCOM, SIGINT, and Link 16 applications. In Phase I, POC will demonstrate the feasibility of the QOSCA by modeling and simulation verification through lab-scale prototyping, and perform Tradespace study for nontraditional antenna locations. In Phase II, POC plans to fabricate, test, and integrate the QOSCA into a scaled UAS model and verify its performance including gain, polarization purity, reflection coefficients, and spectral response, juxtaposing measurement results with simulation to optimize the QOSCA for a full scale over-the-air test in a program of record platform. BENEFIT: The proposed QOSCA technology can be applied to wireless communication and electronic warfare, as well as tagging, tracking, and location identification for border control. Its compact design can provide an excellent feed system for a wide range of civilian and commercial radiating elements. POC"s QOSCA system can also be applied commercially, where it will find use in transmitters and receivers for telecommunications, sensors, and other applications requiring long-range data transfer, e.g., satellite uplink and downlink antenna systems; and for broadband data links for airplanes and radar in commercial airliners. The conformal structure of the QOSCA can be applied to antenna transmitters on water towers, buses, trains, and vehicles, for high-bandwidth data transfer such as WiMAX, and for wireless USB. POC"s QOSCA also has applications in SATCOM on the Move (SOTM) for TV and radio transmission and reception systems.