Novel Circuits for the Design of Low Cost Millimeter Wave Phased Arrays

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0457543MortazawiElectronically scanned antennas have broad applications for both commercial and military segments, including advanced radars, cellular base stations, satellite communications, and automotive collision avoidance radars. The phased array systems can scan the beam electronically at a fast rate, but require complex integration of many circuits, including many expensive solid-state, MEMS or ferrite based phase shifters, control lines, and power distribution networks. The resulting systems are complex, bulky and have high losses. One of the critical elements for electronically scanned phased array antennas is a phase shifter. It typically contributes to a significant amount of the cost of producing a phased array antenna and it is not uncommon for the cost of the phase shifters to represent nearly half of the cost of the entire electronically scanned array. This excessive cost has limited the deployment of electronically scanned antennas and restricted their use to expensive and specialized systems, such as military radars and certain commercial systems such as cellular telephone base stations. Any substantial reduction in the cost of phased array systems will allow much wider deployment of them in commercial arena. In response to the above technology needs, we propose to develop simple and low cost circuit architectures for the design of millimeter-wave phased arrays with reduced complexity and cost. Broader Impact of the Proposed Research One important application that can take advantage of low cost millimeter-wave phased arrays is automotive collision avoidance radar or adaptive cruise control technology. Building a radar for road use has been technically feasible for many years however as mentioned the core issue is how to make one for a tiny fraction of the costs usually involved in making complex phased array radars. Millimeter-wave adaptive cruise control is now an option only on luxury models, such as the Mercedes S-class and Jaguar XKE. The challenge is to reduce the cost/complexity of these systems so that they find their way into ordinary cars. Based on the U.S. Department of Transportation's report, during the year 2000 in the United States, 42,000 deaths were reported due to car crashes. The number of injuries that year reached 3 million. Nine out of ten of those crashes were caused through human error. Through the 1998 Intelligent Vehicle Initiative, the U.S. Department of Transportation identified eight areas where intelligent systems could "improve" or "impact" safety. Among the eight identified areas, four are based on various collision avoidance sensors. Indeed broad application of collision avoidance radars will significantly improve the road safety. These circuits will eventually be taught in class room teaching to help students better understand the interaction of multiple tunable circuit components in a distributed network for much added functionality. Many commercial systems can benefit from low cost phased arrays. The dissemination of research will be based on journal publications, conference/workshop presentations will and the Radiation and Solid-State Laboratories biweekly seminars at UoM that are well attended by both graduate as well as undergraduates. Special effort will be placed in attracting underrepresented students through the University of Michigan UROP (Undergraduate Research Opportunities) and Maria Sara Parker Programs specifically designed to provide research experiences to undergraduate and graduate female and minority students. Currently PI employs one female undergraduate under Maria Sara Parker Program at UoM. Intellectual Merit of the Proposed Research This project investigates a new class of circuits that combine RF power distribution and phase shifters into one entity. The proposed research is expected to have a significant impact on the design of low cost, simple and efficient networks for the design of phased array antennas. Other applications of such circuits include tunable filters at microwave and millimeter-wave frequencies for the design of multifunction transceivers. These systems have applications in various areas of electronic communications including smart antennas, radars, mobile multimedia services, automotive collision avoidance systems and active high power filters. Furthermore applications provided by satellites will also benefit from these developments due to the limitations on size, weight and cost.