| NSF Org: |
TI Translational Impacts |
| Recipient: |
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| Initial Amendment Date: | March 23, 2015 |
| Latest Amendment Date: | March 23, 2015 |
| Award Number: | 1500097 |
| Award Instrument: | Standard Grant |
| Program Manager: |
Barbara H. Kenny
TI Translational Impacts TIP Directorate for Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships |
| Start Date: | April 1, 2015 |
| End Date: | September 30, 2016 (Estimated) |
| Total Intended Award Amount: | $199,394.00 |
| Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $199,394.00 |
| Funds Obligated to Date: |
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| History of Investigator: |
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| Recipient Sponsored Research Office: |
101 COMMONWEALTH AVE AMHERST MA US 01003-9252 (413)545-0698 |
| Sponsor Congressional District: |
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| Primary Place of Performance: |
Amherst MA US 01003-9284 |
| Primary Place of
Performance Congressional District: |
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| Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): |
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| Parent UEI: |
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| NSF Program(s): | Accelerating Innovation Rsrch |
| Primary Program Source: |
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| Program Reference Code(s): |
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| Program Element Code(s): |
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| Award Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Fund Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Assistance Listing Number(s): | 47.084 |
ABSTRACT
This PFI: AIR Technology Translation project focuses on translating a technique to correct polarization errors in phased-array antennas enabling their use in dual polarization weather radar applications. The Interleaved Sparse Array (ISA) technique is important because it augments the enhanced scanning capabilities of phased-array radar and may lead to cheaper and smaller weather radars with appropriate accuracy in places where traditional weather radars are cost- and space-prohibitive. This can lead to the preservation of human life, better management of agriculture, and better preparedness for weather-related events. The project will result in a proof-of-concept demonstration of the ISA technique that will enable dual-polarization phased-array weather radars to achieve necessary polarization purity for weather and hydrological applications in a cost-effective manner.
In phased-array antennas, each element of the array not only radiates its requested polarization, but also emits an unwanted cross-polarized signal. The ISA technique is a correction that is applied after manufacturing and switches the polarization of some of the antenna elements in order to cancel the cross-polarized signal of the remainder of the array, or to adjust the overall radiated polarization. To do so, the antenna elements need to be characterized to determine the number and position of the elements to be switched. This project addresses how to cost effectively characterize the antenna elements and how to evaluate the resulting performance so that ISA may be applied to commercial products. In addition to the technical work, personnel involved in this project, including a postdoctoral student, will conduct literature and patent searches related to prior art, work with the university technology office on protecting any intellectual property generated, develop marketing collateral, and work with industrial collaborators and other potential licensees on identifying first adopters of the technology for prototype demonstrations.
PUBLICATIONS PRODUCED AS A RESULT OF THIS RESEARCH
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PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT
Disclaimer
This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.
This award has supported the investigation of a technique to improve the cross-polarization isolation of a phased-array antenna. Phased-arrays are candidate architectures for future weather radar systems that will need to measure the echo from weather targets (i.e. rain, snow, etc.) using different polarizations with high fidelity. It is generally difficult and expensive to fabricate such antennas with the necessary fidelity.
The method investigated, termed the Interleaved Sparse Array (ISA) technique, attempts to cancel undesired cross-polarization contamination by using a small fraction of the phased-array antenna elements properly phased. The concept is roughly analagous to that of noise-cancelling headphones. This method, if successfully applied to antennas, could relax the design requirements of such arrays, enabling lower-cost manufacture.
We applied this technique to a 64-element dual-polarized phased-array weather radar antenna developed at UMass. The array scans in the azimuth (horizontal) dimension only. We found that the ISA technique resulted in improved cross-polarization performance over the central portion of the antenna beam. We also found, however, that the overall cross-polarization performance integrated over the entire beam was not significantly improved. We found that cross-polarization contamination that existed in the elevation plane of the antenna was not significantly cancelled. The relatively small number of elements in this array also limits the extent to which cancellation can be achieved using just a few elements. We plan to continue investigation of this technique using a two-dimensional scanning phased array with many more antenna elements and diversity in both azimuth and elevation.
Last Modified: 10/25/2016
Modified by: Stephen J Frasier
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