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Application Note

Beam Forming Networks

PREPARED BY: EMS TECHNOLOGIES, INC. SPACE AND TECHNOLOGY - ATLANTA 660 ENGINEERING DRIVE P.O. BOX 7700 NORCROSS, GA 30091-7700
2004 EMS Technologies, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Approved for public release under DFOISR Case 04-S-1906

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................................3 1.1 1.2 MULTIPLE BEAM ANTENNAS ...................................................................................................................4 TYPES OF BEAM FORMING NETWORKS ....................................................................................................7

SWITCHED BEAM FORMING NETWORKS ........................................................................................9 2.1 SWITCHED BFN BUILDING BLOCKS AND TYPICAL PERFORMANCE .........................................................9 2.1.1 Typical Performance of Switched BFN Components ...................................................................10 2.1.2 Packaging Options for Switched BFN Components.....................................................................11 2.2 EXAMPLES OF SWITCHED BFNS ............................................................................................................13 2.2.1 MILSTAR II Consolidated Agile Beam BFN ................................................................................13 2.2.2 ACTS Downlink BFN....................................................................................................................15

VARIABLE BEAM FORMING NETWORKS.......................................................................................17 3.1 VARIABLE BFN BUILDING BLOCKS AND TYPICAL PERFORMANCE .......................................................17 3.1.1 Typical Performance of Variable BFN Components....................................................................18
3.1.1.1 3.1.1.2 3.1.1.3 3.1.1.4 3.1.1.5 Variable Power Dividers (VPDs) ............................................................................................................. 18 Phase/Amplitude Controllers (PACs)....................................................................................................... 21 Phase Shifters........................................................................................................................................... 23 Phase Shifter Setting Errors ..................................................................................................................... 25 BFN Setting Errors................................................................................................................................... 29

3.1.2
3.1.2.1 3.1.2.2 3.1.2.3

Packaging Options for Variable BFN Components .....................................................................30

Standard Waveguide ................................................................................................................................ 30 Microstrip................................................................................................................................................. 31 Lightweight Waveguide ........................................................................................................................... 32

3.2 EXAMPLES OF VARIABLE BFNS ............................................................................................................33 3.2.1 MILSTAR II Nulling Antenna BFN...............................................................................................33 3.2.2 DSCS III BFNs .............................................................................................................................35 4 SUMMARY.................................................................................................................................................36

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1 Introduction
In the rapidly evolving global telecommunications industry, communications satellites that have on-orbit lifetimes of fifteen years or more may well see entire market segments emerge, thrive, and subside during the time they are on station. It is therefore desirable to have a communications payload that can reconfigure its antenna beam patterns, as well as the switching and routing of signals through the satellite, after the spacecraft has been placed on orbit. This on-orbit flexibility must be achieved within the stringent constraints of size, mass, cost, power consumption, reliability and technical risk that are required for commercial communications satellite payloads. Current U.S. military communications satellites have the ability to reconfigure their antenna patterns on orbit. The Defense Satellite Communications System III (DSCS III) satellites transmit and receive through X-band multiple beam antennas (MBAs) with programmable beam forming networks (BFNs). The programmable BFNs are used to re-shape the spacecrafts antenna patterns as needed under ground control. The MILSTAR II spacecraft has autonomous anti-jam nulling antennas on the uplink of its 44-GHz Medium Data Rate payload. These multiple beam antennas use programmable BFNs that automatically re-shape the spacecrafts antenna patterns whenever an uplink jammer is detected. The Advanced EHF satellites that are currently under construction will include similar adaptive nulling MBAs. EMS designed and built the programmable beam forming networks for DSCS, MILSTAR, and Advanced EHF. These BFNs all use EMS ferrite-based phase/amplitude control network technology. Ferrite-based BFNs offer excellent broadband channel-to-channel tracking performance and stability over life. In addition to unsurpassed RF performance, ferrite BFNs are a mature low-risk technology that offers exceptional reliability. On just the DSCS III and MILSTAR programs, EMS has accumulated over 420 million device-hours of failure-free operation on orbit. In many regimes of coverage and gain, MBAs with BFNs are superior to phased arrays in terms of cost and power consumption. They can offer lower development risk due to their long spaceflight heritage (the first DSCS III BFNs were launched in 1982). MBAs with BFNs are therefore an attractive alternative for providing on-orbit reconfigurability for nextgeneration commercial communications satellites. They provide the required performance and flexibility within the tight cost and schedule constraints of commercial programs. The sections below describe some implementation options for MBAs and BFNs, including typical performance values for EMS BFN components.

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1.1

Multiple Beam Antennas

Multiple beam antennas are defined1 as antennas with multiple input (or output) ports such that different radiation patterns are obtained when signals are impressed on the different ports. In most practical implementations a pencil beam results when a signal is applied to a single input. Also, the term MBA is generally reserved for antennas with N > 5 ports to exclude monopulse and four-horn sequential lobing antennas from the category. Probably the most widely employed MBA is the reflector illuminated by an array of multiple feed horns, shown in Figure 1. Other examples are lens antennas fed by multi-horn arrays, as shown in Figure 2, and planar arrays fed by Butler matrices.

Figure 1. A Cassegrain reflector antenna fed by an array of horns is one implementation of a multiple beam antenna.

The N beams that are produced by exciting each antenna port in turn define the field of view of the MBA. These beams, referred to as the component beams of the antenna, form a linear basis of the set of antenna patterns that can be realized with the MBA. The beam forming network (BFN) connects to the N ports of the MBA and provides excitations of the correct amplitudes and phases at all ports to produce the desired antenna pattern.
1

L. J. Ricardi, Multiple Beam Antennas, chapter 6 in the Handbook of Antenna Design, vol. 1, A. W. Rudge, K. Milne, A. D. Olver and P. Knight eds., Peter Peregrinus Ltd., London, UK, 1982.

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Figure 2. EMS 265-port switched-beam lens antenna featured adaptive nulling on any contiguous seven-horn cluster.

One of the advantages of the MBA/BFN combination is that the required hardware can be limited to only those component beams required to achieve the desired coverage. This is illustrated in the feed structure of NASAs Advanced Communications Technology Satellite (ACTS) shown in Figure 3. The feed horns are distributed across the focal plane of the Cassegrain reflector antenna so as to produce antenna beams only at the locations shown on the map of Figure 4. In addition to the desired positions of the spot beams, this feed configuration allows the use of different size feed horns to tailor the spot size and gain from location to location. By contrast a phased array requires a fully filled array of radiating elements in order to avoid grating lobes, even if only a few relatively widely dispersed coverage areas are desired. The ACTS MBAs two clusters of feed horns can be so widely separated because they are on different polarizations, and the MBA uses a dual-polarized sub-reflector that has separate foci for the two polarizations as shown in Figure 5. This illustrates another flexibility of the multiple beam antenna. Through the use of dual-polarized and/or frequency selective subreflectors, a wide variety of frequency- and polarization-reuse plans can be implemented, with independent beam forming networks for the different frequency bands or polarizations.

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Figure 3. Feed horn clusters on NASA's ACTS spacecraft.

Figure 4. EIRP Contours for the ACTS MBA.

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Figure 5. The ACTS MBAs use of a dual-polarized sub-reflector with different foci for the two polarizations allows the use of independent beam forming networks.

Recent work on spaceflight MBAs has yielded some interesting side-fed and top-fed Cassegrain configurations at Ka-band, using sub-reflectors that are comparable in size to the main reflector. These MBA configurations exhibit excellent scanning performance due to their large effective f/D ratios. Antennas of this type can achieve2 less than 0.5 dB scan loss and better than 20 dB sidelobes over the field of view of the Earth seen from geosynchronous orbit. MBAs of this type were employed in the design of some of the big GEO data communications satellites such as Spaceway and Astrolink. Once an MBA configuration has been chosen, a beam forming network must be designed to provide the proper excitations at the antennas ports. Again, numerous options are available to the designer. The following sections describe the passive beam forming network technology offered by EMS Technologies. As will be seen below, this technology has extensive spaceflight heritage and offers a low-risk path to on-orbit reconfigurability for next generation commercial communications satellites. 1.2 Types of Beam Forming Networks

Beam forming networks can be divided broadly into two types3, the switched BFN and the variable BFN. These are shown schematically in Figure 6. The switched BFN of Figure 6(a) consists, in its simplest form, of a binary tree of SPDT switches. It thus allows any single horn of the MBA feed cluster to be illuminated with the RF input signal. In EMS
2

C. Chandler, L. Hoey, D. Hixon, T. Smigla, A. Peebles, M. Em, Ka-Band Communications Satellite Antenna Technology, AIAA 20th Conference on Satellite Systems, Montreal, Canada, May 12-15, 2002 3 T.E. Sharon, Beam Forming Networks for mm-Wave Satellite Communications, Microwave Journal, August 1983

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implementations of the switched BFN, the SPDT elements are low-loss ferrite latching circulators. The variable BFN of Figure 6(b) allows more general excitation of the MBAs feed horns. It uses an array of programmable variable power dividers (VPDs) and phase shifters to provide any desired distribution of amplitude and phase to the MBAs feed horns.
Commands & Telemetry Commands & Telemetry

VPD

VPD VPD

RF In

To MBA Ports

RF In
VPD

To MBA Ports

VPD

VPD

(a)

(b)

Figure 6. Beam forming networks can be divided into the broad classes of (a) switched BFNs and (b) variable BFNs.

The two basic types of beam forming networks are described in greater detail in the following sections, including typical performance parameters for the switch, VPD and phase shifter building blocks in various frequency bands. As will be seen, numerous variations on the basic schematics of Figure 6 are possible, including: addition of fixed power dividers to implement multiple simultaneous beams from a switched or variable BFN combinations of switched and variable BFNs to yield switched-beam antennas with adaptive nulling on the selected beam switch trees broken up into independent sub-trees to feed horns in triplets or septets to control sidelobes.

The intent of the following sections is to provide sufficient information on the building blocks of EMS passive BFNs to enable the reader to do what-if performance estimates on some of these more complex BFN configurations.

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2 Switched Beam Forming Networks

The simplest type of beam former uses only microwave switches, as shown in Figure 6 (a). For the passive beam formers provided by EMS Technologies, these switches are latching ferrite circulators configured as single-pole double-throw (SP2T) switches. This type of BFN does not allow pattern shaping other than that which is provided by the fixed feed horn design. This type of BFN is used, for example, when Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) hopping spot beams are desired from the satellite, or when the satellite must switch between multiple mobile earth terminals. The following sections describe the building blocks for switched beam BFNs and give some typical examples of networks that are currently flying on communications satellites. 2.1 Switched BFN Building Blocks and Typical Performance

The basic building block of EMS passive switched BFNs is the ferrite Y-toroid switch. An example of a 20-GHz switch triad in a unibody housing is shown in Figure 7. The switch consists of a Y-shaped ferrite element with holes in all three legs through which a latch wire is passed.

Latch wire Spacer

Toroid

Transformer

Figure 7. A 20-GHz switch triad in a unibody housing.

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The legs of the toroid act as a magnetic yoke, as well as part of the impedance matching structure from the waveguide mode to the central region of the ferrite element. By passing current pulses through the latch wire, the central region of the toroid can be remanently magnetized up or down, changing the direction of circulation of the ferrite element. The chief advantages of the ferrite switch are low insertion loss, high power handling capability, and low DC power consumption. The low power consumption results from the fact that the ferrite switch is a latching device: it only consumes power when its remanent state is being changed. Between switching events, the electronic drivers that generate the switching pulses can be powered off. 2.1.1 Typical Performance of Switched BFN Components Table 1 shows typical RF performance for ferrite latching circulator switches. These values assume bandwidth of ~5%, a maximum temperature of 50C, and end-of-life electronic driver performance. Switching time for all of these switches is <1 s, and at frequencies of 20 GHz or higher, switching times <500 ns can be achieved. Switching rates in the tens of thousands of switching events per second are routinely achieved. Reliability of an EMS ferrite circulator switch is 0.1 FITS in the spaceflight environment. This reliability value is independent of the number of actuations the switch sees in its lifetime. Harmonic levels generated by switched BFN components depend on the power level and exact physical configuration of the BFN, but are generally quite low. In a recent test at 20 GHz in which a chain of 6 ferrite switches was subjected to a 50.1 W test signal, the second harmonic generated was 104 dB down from the carrier (-57 dBm). The worst case third harmonic level was 115 dB down from the carrier.
Table 1. Typical performance of ferrite latching circulator switches in frequency bands of interest for satellite communications.

Frequency (GHz) 7/8 11/14 20 30 44 60 94

Insertion Loss (dB) 0.10 0.10 0.10 0.12 0.15 0.20 0.40

Isolation (dB) 21 21 21 21 21 20 18

Return Loss (dB) 21 21 21 21 21 20 18

Power Handling (W) 250 200 150 90 60 40 20

Switching Energy (J) 50 40 30 20 20 15 10

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2.1.2 Packaging Options for Switched BFN Components Figure 8 shows three options for packaging a WR-22 4:1 ferrite switch tree, which is a typical building block for construction of switched BFNs. The largest and heaviest option, shown in the upper left, uses standard aluminum switch housings interconnected with electroformed waveguide. This option generally has the lowest cost and the best RF performance. The middle ground in terms of size and mass is the laser welded unibody switch housing, shown in the lower right. Here the seven ferrite junctions of the switch tree are assembled in a single tub-and-cover machined aluminum housing. The reduced height of the housing, along with elimination of interconnecting flanges and fasteners, yield a greaterthan-four-to-one improvement in mass relative to the conventional construction approach. Since the weld occurs at an internal corner of the waveguide, this type construction typically has slightly higher insertion loss than the conventional construction. Alternative cover attachment approaches are currently being explored to reduce this effect. Cost of the unibody switch packaging approach is slightly higher than the conventional, due to additional fixturing associated with the laser welding.

15.5 grams

160 grams

37.5 grams
Figure 8. Ferrite latching circulator switches can be packaged in a number of configurations, allowing trades of cost, mass and RF performance.

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The lowest-mass approach, shown in the upper right of Figure 8, uses flangeless switch housings and electroformed interconnects. This approach does not currently have spaceflight heritage, though some fairly elaborate switch networks have been prototyped. Its RF performance is comparable to the conventional construction, but it is the highest-cost of the three approaches due to the need for extensive assembly fixturing.

Figure 9. A spherical lens/horn multiple beam antenna with an integrated switched beam forming network.

The best overall combination of size, mass and RF performance is always achieved when the spacecraft prime contractor and the BFN provider work together from the early phases of antenna concept development. Since ferrite switching elements are essentially impervious to radiation, they and their associated waveguide runs can be machined into housing walls or supporting structures. They can in fact be used to shield other less hard electronics. Figure 9 shows an example of a multiple beam antenna in which the corporate switch tree is built into the housing walls that support the feed horn cluster. Collaboration between the antenna designer and BFN designer can yield great size and weight benefits relative to the alternative of buying standard switches and custom waveguide runs and bolting them up to an antenna.

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2.2 Examples of Switched BFNs Switched beam BFNs provided the hopping spot beams for both uplink and downlink on the MILSTAR I and MILSTAR II spacecraft, as well as NASAs Advanced Communications Technology Satellite (ACTS). A switched beam BFN was also constructed for the Astrolink broadband data communications satellite. The MILSTAR II Consolidated Agile Beam uplink BFN and the ACTS downlink BFN are described below as examples of the breadth of this technology. 2.2.1 MILSTAR II Consolidated Agile Beam BFN Figure 10 shows the MILSTAR II Consolidated Agile Beam (CAB) Switched Beam Forming Network. Figure 11 shows the CAB unit with the horn/lens MBA integrated onto its top panel. The Q-band CAB unit allows five simultaneous uplink hopping spot beams to share the same horn/lens multiple beam antenna. Each feed horn of the multiple beam horn/lens antenna feeds a dual redundant low noise amplifier. Each amplifier assembly feeds a fiveway waveguide power divider. The outputs of the power dividers feed five identical independent 38:1 switch trees that yield the five outputs. This results in a fully non-blocking 38 X 5 switch matrix: any set of inputs can be mapped to the five outputs, including having all five outputs look down the same beam, if desired. The CAB BFN was the result of a Pre-Planned Product Improvement project. The original MILSTAR I configuration spacecraft used five separate horn/lens antennas, each with its own switched beam forming network to accomplish the same capability.

Figure 10. The MILSTAR II Consolidated Agile Beam (CAB) switch network used 667 ferrite switches to implement a non-blocking 38X5 switch matrix.

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Figure 11. The CAB BFN with the horn/lens MBA integrated on its top surface.

Figure 12. The laser welded unibody ferrite switch housing was a key enabling technology for the CAB BFN.

The CAB network, at 48.5 kg mass and measuring 890 mm X 635 mm X 760 mm, represented a 45% mass reduction and a 65% reduction in footprint relative to the MILSTAR I configuration. Because of the simplification of top-level integration (1 MBA vs. 5), there was also an overall cost savings to the customer. A key enabling technology for the CAB BFN is a high-density packaging approach using laser-welded unibody housings for multiple ferrite switch junctions. Figure 12 shows a 4:1 switch tree built with this technology.

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The CAB BFN illustrates how, on the receive side, an MBA can be used to generate multiple simultaneous beams without any significant degradation in the G/T set by the LNAs at the antenna ports. As many as ten simultaneous beams can be generated from a single MBA aperture using the laser-welded unibody switch housing technology. Even with the large number of switches involved, the CAB unit only consumed 40 W nominally, including power to all of its input LNAs. 2.2.2 ACTS Downlink BFN NASAs Advanced Communications Technology Satellite (ACTS) was launched in 1993 and serves as a test bed for Ka-band data communication satellite technology. It operates with an uplink band of 28.9 to 30 GHz and a downlink band of 19.2 to 20.2 GHz (the extra bandwidth on uplink is to accommodate the autotracking beacon). The spacecraft carries two offset Cassegrain-fed multiple beam antennas, one for transmit and one for receive. The 2.2m diameter receive MBA and the 3.3-m diameter transmit MBA both produce approximately 0.3 beam widths, giving a spot beam coverage about 120 miles in diameter on the Earth. Each MBA has two switched beam forming networks, for a total of four on the spacecraft. Each transmit and receive MBA has a total of five separate antenna ports. Three of these ports are for the fixed stations at Cleveland, Atlanta and Tampa. The other two ports connect to the BFNs. The two BFNs are configured to serve, respectively, the east and west families of hopping spot beams. The east and west families operate on orthogonal linear polarizations while using the same Ka-band frequency range. With this arrangement, the spacecraft can cover a total of 51 separate spot beam locations as shown in Figure 4. ACTS carries three transponders, each of which covers the full 900 MHz communications bandwidth of the spacecraft, allowing data burst rates as high as 696 Mb/s each. The BFNs thus allow numerous frequency reuse scenarios through re-configuring the interconnects between the antenna ports and the spot beams. Figure 13 shows the scan sector of the ACTS transmit west beam forming network. The schematic of the transmit west BFN is shown in Figure 14. Insertion loss through this BFN was less than 0.5 dB for the isolated spots and less than 1.0 dB for the scan sector spots. This BFN had an interesting feature in that the antenna required the scan sector horns to be excited in equal-amplitude-equal-phase triplets in order to illuminate the reflector for the desired performance. Thus the switch network had to be broken up into three interleaved binary switch trees that were phase matched to within a few degrees.

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Figure 13. The ACTS transmit BFN provided switched connection to triplets of component beams to generate the downlink hopping spot beams.

The ACTS BFN switches beams in less than 850 ns and can switch between the component beams at rates up to 14,000 switching events per second per switch. It was required to handle 45 W of transmitter power and was successfully tested to 65 W. The BFNs with electronics but without feed horns range in weight from 25 to 41 pounds. These units were built using individual switch housings interconnected with electroformed waveguides. They did not take advantage of any of the packaging technology described above for the CAB BFN. Using the unibody switch packaging approach and updated electronics packaging, equivalent BFNs could be built today with less than half the mass of the ACTS units.

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Figure 14. RF Schematic of the ACTS West beam forming network.

3 Variable Beam Forming Networks

A variable beam forming network allows any combination of the MBAs ports to be illuminated with any desired distribution of RF amplitude and phase. It makes use of all of the degrees of freedom of the multiple beam antenna and yields numerous operational capabilities including continuous pattern shaping and adaptive nulling of interference sources. The following sections describe the building blocks for switched beam BFNs and give some typical examples of networks that are currently flying on communications satellites. 3.1 Variable BFN Building Blocks and Typical Performance

The building blocks of EMS passive variable BFNs are ferrite variable power dividers (VPDs), phase/amplitude control modules (PACs) and phase shifters. Details on each of these building blocks are provided in the following sections. As with the switches, ferrite

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PACs, VPDs and phase shifters offer low insertion loss, high power handling capability, and low DC power consumption. The low power consumption results from the fact that each of these elements is a latching device: they only consume power when their remanent states are being changed. Between switching events, the electronic drivers that generate the switching pulses can be powered off. For variable BFNs, passive ferrite implementations offer another significant benefit. Because the waveguide ferrite devices are intrinsically low-loss, broadband and radiation-hard, BFNs built with this technology offer excellent channel-tochannel tracking over temperature, frequency and life. BFNs with dozens of ports can readily achieve channel-to-channel tracking of a few degrees of phase at millimeter-wave frequencies. Channel-to-channel tracking through the BFN is essential for maintaining antenna pattern fidelity. 3.1.1 Typical Performance of Variable BFN Components Both PACs and VPDs use ferrite phase shifters as their key microwave control components. The next two sections show how PACs and VPDs are built up from phase shifters and other components. Their performance in terms of insertion loss, power handling, isolation, etc. are also presented. The discussion of setting accuracy and contributors to error are presented in the section on phase shifters which follows the VPD and PAC sections. 3.1.1.1 Variable Power Dividers (VPDs) The variable power divider (VPD) is shown schematically in Figure 15. Figure 16 shows a spaceflight VPD from the DSCS III program. The VPD consists of two ferrite 90 phase shifters placed between a waveguide magic tee and a waveguide 90 hybrid. The magic tee performs an equal-phase, equal-amplitude split of the incoming signal, applying these divided outputs to the ferrite phase shifter inputs. The phase shifters adjust the relative phase of these two signals before they are recombined in the hybrid. Both the phase shifters and the waveguide couplers are very low-loss devices. The VPD, basically an interferometric device, can thus divide the signal between its two outputs as specified by the phase shifter settings while incurring very little dissipation loss along either path. The advantage of using two different types of couplers (magic tee and quadrature hybrid) in the VPD design is that there is then a built-in 90 offset between the two paths through the VPD. This allows two identical 90 phase shifters to be used between the couplers to realize the VPD function. If identical couplers are used (either magic tee or quadrature hybrid) then one must either put identical 180 phase shifters (which are more lossy than 90 phase shifters) between them, or one must design two 90 phase shifters which have a built-in 90 insertion phase offset. Maintaining this offset over phase setting, frequency, and temperature is difficult.

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Output 1 Magic T Phase Shifter #1

RF Input

Output 2 Phase Shifter #2 Hybrid

1 + 2 1 2 + 2 2 exp j Vo1 = Vi cos 2 2 Vo 2 = Vi cos

(1)

2 1 + 2
2

1 + 2 2 exp j 2
1
0 45 90

( 2)

CONDITION Eout/Ein LOW ATTEN RESET Eout/Ein HIGH ATTEN

2
90 45 0

Eout1/Ein 1

1/ 2
0

Figure 15. The VPD is constructed by placing two 90 phase shifters between a 0- and a 90-power divider.

Figure 16. This DSCS III VPD was constructed in reduced height WR-112 waveguide.

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With the magic tee/quadrature hybrid VPD, the two phase shifters must be commanded such that their phases, 1 and 2 satisfy 1 + 2 = 90o in order to achieve a constant phase relation between the two outputs. The keys to achieving good VPD performance in terms of setting accuracy and maximum off-state attenuation are: 1) achieving low loss and good amplitude and phase tracking between the two paths through the VPD, and 2) achieving high setting accuracy of the VPDs phase shifters with the electronic driver.
Table 2. Typical performance of ferrite VPDs in frequency bands of interest for satellite communications.

Frequency (GHz) 7/8 11/14 20 30 44 60 94

Insertion Loss (dB) 0.40 0.40 0.40 0.50 0.75 1.25 2.50

Isolation (dB) 25 25 25 25 25 22 20

Return Loss (dB) 21 21 21 21 21 20 18

Power Handling (W) 650 500 400 250 150 100 60

Table 2 shows typical RF performance for a ferrite VPD in frequency ranges of interest for satellite communications. The total insertion loss of the VPD is independent of the power division setting: the input power is steered to one or the other of the outputs, but the amount dissipated in the device is constant. For this reason, as well as their lower level of insertion loss, VPDs are generally preferred over PACs, described below, in variable BFNs for transmit applications. The power handling capabilities quoted in Table 2 are limited by thermal design, the practical difficulty of getting heat out of the ferrite elements in vacuum. The multipactor limits are much higher. For example, with the gap widths that are typical for the 7/8 GHz design, the device could be operated at 3 kW with 6 dB multipactor margin. VPDs typically have switching times in the 2-5 s range. To minimize ferrite memory effects, the VPD must be set in a two step process. First a high current RESET pulse is issued to the VPD. This erases the previous command and places the device in a known reference state. Then a precise, feedback-controlled SET pulse is issued to place the device in the desired final state. This set pulse can be controlled to 12-bit resolution giving very fine granularity to the resulting amplitude setting. The fact that the VPD goes to its reference state between the RESET and SET pulses can introduce a transient modulation of the communications path. There are several ways to minimize the effects of this transient. One is to choose a reference state for the phase shifters that has a 45 phase shift. Then the

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reference state as well as all of the set states satisfy 1 + 2 = 90o and the VPD exhibits a minimal phase transient in going through the RESET-SET sequence. There is still an amplitude transient: the VPD goes to an equal power split between the RESET and SET pulses. Since most satellite communications channels use some version of phase shift keying modulation, they are relatively insensitive to amplitude transients. Through judicious choice of the sequence in which one updates the VPDs in a BFN, one can generally reconfigure the BFN without disrupting communications traffic through it. 3.1.1.2 Phase/Amplitude Controllers (PACs) Phase/amplitude control networks (PACs) can apply any arbitrary amplitude and phase weighting (within the unit circle) to the microwave signal passing through them. The PAC is shown schematically in Figure 17. Figure 18 shows a photograph of a spaceflight PAC in WR-22 waveguide for the MILSTAR nulling antenna BFN.

360 Phase Shifter

360 Phase Shifter

Figure 17. Schematic of the Ferrite Phase Shifter-Based Phase Amplitude Control Module (PAC).

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Figure 18. The Phase/Amplitude Controllers for the MILSTAR Nulling BFN are Constructed in WR-22 Waveguide

The PAC consists of two ferrite 360 phase shifters placed between power dividers. The first power divider splits the incoming signal into two equal halves and applies these to the phase shifters. The two phase shifters are then adjusted such that the two halves of the signal recombine and interfere to achieve the desired amplitude and phase for the output signal. Equation (1) gives the (idealized) relationship between the input and output of the PAC in terms of the phase shifter settings. Examination of this equation shows that any desired phase and amplitude of transmission can be achieved by adjusting the two phase shifters. The amplitude is controlled by the difference between the two phase shifter settings and the PACs phase setting is just the average of the two phase shifter settings.
Vo = Vi cos

1 2
2

+ exp j 1 2 2

(1)

The keys to achieving good PAC performance in terms of setting accuracy and maximum off state attenuation are: 1) achieving good amplitude and phase tracking between the two paths through the PAC, and 2) achieving high setting accuracy of the PACs phase shifters with the electronic driver. The amplitude and phase tracking between the two paths through the PAC are determined by the performance of the power dividers as well as the phase shifters. Depending on the frequency range and packaging option selected, the power dividers may be microstrip

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Wilkinson or Lange couplers or waveguide branch guide or short slot hybrids. Over the bandwidths typical of satellite communications payloads, these types of components provide sufficiently good flatness, match, and isolation that their contribution to PAC setting errors are small and can be calibrated out in the PAC characterization process. Thus, the problem of predicting PAC accuracy performance reduces to that of analyzing ferrite phase shifter setting errors. This is discussed in more detail in the phase shifter section below.
Table 3. Typical performance of ferrite PACs in frequency bands of interest for satellite communications.

Frequency (GHz) 7/8 11/14 20 30 44 60 94

Insertion Loss (dB) 0.90 0.90 0.90 1.10 1.45 2.20 3.50

Isolation (dB) 25 25 25 25 25 22 20

Return Loss (dB) 21 21 21 21 21 20 18

Table 3 shows typical performance for ferrite PACs over frequency ranges of interest for satellite communications. PACs are most often used in receive beam forming networks. A typical configuration would have redundant low noise amplifier modules at each port of the MBA, with each LNA module feeding into a PAC. The outputs of all the PACs are then summed in an equal N-way RF power combiner. In this way the component beams can be assigned any desired complex weight before being combined to yield the composite beam. PACs typically switch in 2-5 s and exhibit the same RESET-SET transient behavior as that described above for the VPD. In the LNA/PAC/power combiner configuration, the effect of any one PACs RESET-SET transient is reduced at least by the 1/N of the power combiner and possibly more based on the attenuation setting of the PAC. Thus, transient effects can generally be mitigated by sequential one-at-a-time updating of the PACs in the BFN. 3.1.1.3 Phase Shifters Figure 19 shows the cross section of the ferrite phase shifters used to construct the PACs and VPDs described above. They consist of two rectangular tubes or toroids of ferrite material placed on either side of a high dielectric constant center slab. This combination is placed inside a metal enclosure. The result is a slab loaded waveguide which supports, to a good approximation, Longitudinal Slab Magnetic (LSM) and Longitudinal Slab Electric (LSE) modes.

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A typical RF field distribution for the dominant LSE10 mode is shown in the figure. With this geometry, the plane of circularly polarized magnetic field (maximum interaction with the ferrite) moves farther into the high field region of the waveguide as frequency increases. At the same time, since the phase shifter operates at a frequency higher than that of magnetic resonance, the magnetic activity of the ferrite falls off with increasing frequency. By careful adjustment of material parameters and cross sectional geometry, it is possible to make these two effects counteract each other, yielding a device that has differential phase shift which is very flat across frequency. The phase shift is approximately proportional to the remanent magnetization level of the ferrite material. This remanent magnetization level is set by sending current pulses through the magnetizing latch wires. Since the toroids form closed magnetic circuits, they can hold a remanent field without a holding current in the magnetizing wires. So phase shifters of this type only consume power while they are being set; between setting operations they can be powered down and act as passive microwave devices.
Remanent Magnetization Magnetizing Latch Wire High Dielectric Constant Center Slab Metal Waveguide

RF Field Distribution Ferrite Toroids

Figure 19. Cross section of a dual toroid ferrite phase shifter magnetized in the electrically longest state

Table 4 shows typical RF performance for spaceflight phase shifters in frequency ranges of interest for satellite communications. Switching times are typically in the range of 2-5 s and the phase shifters can be switched at rates in the tens of thousands of switching events per second. As discussed above, phase shifter setting accuracy is the main determinant of PAC and VPD setting accuracy. Phase shifter setting accuracy is discussed in the following section.

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Table 4. Typical performance of 360 ferrite phase shifters in frequency bands of interest for satellite communications.

Frequency (GHz) 7/8 11/14 20 30 44 60 94

Insertion Loss (dB) 0.70 0.70 0.70 0.90 1.20 2.0 3.0

Return Loss (dB) 21 21 21 21 21 20 18

Power Handling (W) 650 500 400 250 150 100 60

3.1.1.4 Phase Shifter Setting Errors To see how phase shifter setting errors relate to PAC setting errors, apply Eulers identity to equation (1). This gives

Vo 1 j1 1 j = e + e j2 = (cos 1 + cos 2 ) + (sin 1 + sin 2 ) Vi 2 2 2

(2 )

In this expression, the insertion loss of the PAC has been normalized out as it generally is in the definition of PAC setting errors (i.e. PAC settings are referenced to a minimum loss V state). If we have a desired weight setting W = o that corresponds to the phase shifter Vi settings (1 , 2 ) , then we can use (2) to calculate the expected weight setting error that will result when we have phase setting errors (1 , 2 ) .

W + =

1 [cos(1 + 1 ) + cos(2 + 2 )] + j [sin(1 + 1 ) + sin(2 + 2 )] 2 2

(3)

Assuming that the (1 , 2 ) are small, we can solve (3) for using only the first order terms of the Taylor series.

1 ( sin 1 + j cos1 )1 + 1 ( sin 2 + j cos2 )2 2 2

( 4)

Taking the magnitude squared of ,

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1 12 sin 2 1 + 212 sin 1 sin 2 + 22 sin 2 2 4 1 + 12 cos 2 1 + 212 cos 1 cos 2 + 22 cos 2 2 4 2 Taking the expected value of over an ensemble of (1 , 2 ) , assuming the (1 , 2 ) are

=
2

independent zero-mean random variables gives

E( ) =
2

1 (E (12 ) sin 2 1 + E (12 ) cos2 1 ) + 1 (E (22 ) sin 2 2 + E (22 ) cos2 2 ) 4 4 2 2 E (1 ) + E ( 2 ) = 4

If we further assume that the two phase shifters have identical error performance, this reduces to E

( ) = E ( )/ 2 , and E ( ) = E ( ) /
2 2
2 2

2 . So, we have the simple result

that, to a good approximation, the RMS weight setting error of a PAC is just 1 / 2 times the RMS phase error of the phase shifters which comprise it. This result is independent of the weight setting chosen for the PAC.
3.1.1.4.1 Sources of Error in Ferrite Phase Shifters

There are six independent phase error terms for each phase shifter in a PAC. These are ferrite memory error, linearization (or characterization) error, partial state flatness or bowtie error, temperature drift, end-of-life drift and random driver error. Figure 20 shows how these error terms combine to yield the overall error performance of the phase shifter. The error terms are described in the sections below.
3.1.1.4.1.1 Memory Error

Memory error occurs because of the magnetic hysteresis property of the ferrite components. All ferrite materials exhibit hysteresis effects, which can be thought of as a type of memory; i.e., the ferrite remembers its previous magnetization state, and its new magnetization state is a function of the previous states and the currently commanded state. The following process has been used to successfully model memory errors on previous programs at EMS. The memory error of the phase shifter is modeled by first determining the remembered phase state. This remembered phase state, mem is determined by computing a weighted sum of the previous several phase commands. The weighting function for the remembered states decays linearly with command number. Thus the most recent phase commands have the greatest effect on the calculated remembered state. The hysteresis error of the phase shifter is proportional to how far the phase shifter is stepping

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away from the remembered state. Thus, one sees larger errors when one first takes a large step in phase. With repeated commands to nearly the same value of phase setting, the memory error term effectively vanishes. Ferrite hysteresis has an effect on the PACs large step error performance, but has no effect on small step errors, setting resolution, or quiescent setting errors. Ferrite hysteresis has no impact on the BFNs ultimate ability to form a deep null. The model for phase shifter errors due to hysteresis was derived empirically using measurements taken on breadboard PACs. Phase error data were taken while the phase shifter was stepped through a representative sample of all possible initial states and final states. Expressions for phase error as a function of mem and the final phase setting were derived by curve fitting these data.
Electronic Driver Noise + +

Memory Error

Linearization Error + + + +

"Bowtie" Error + +

Temperature Drift + +

End-of-Life Drift + +

cmd

res

Phase Error vs. mem Curve

()

b(f )

T(T)

life()

n(t)

mem
+ z
-1

a1 + + a2 + +

mem

(-1)
z
-1

(-2)

(-N)

aN

Figure 20. Error terms for ferrite phase shifters.

3.1.1.4.1.2 Linearization Errors

Linearization errors are basically measurement errors made during characterization. They are thus fixed offset errors in phase vs. command that do not change from setting to setting of the phase shifter.

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3.1.1.4.1.3 Partial State Flatness or Bowtie Errors

The phase vs. frequency slope of a ferrite phase shifter changes slightly with magnetization state. Even if the electrically longest and electrically shortest states of the phase shifter are compensated to track each other perfectly over frequency, the intermediate partially magnetized states will generally have a slight slope vs. frequency which changes as a function of phase command. If one removes the nominal slope and subtracts out the midband phase from all of the ensemble of phase vs. frequency plots for a phase shifter, the residual phase vs. frequency error is a family of curves that all cross zero at the mid band and slope either slightly positively or slightly negatively across the band. The result resembles a bowtie, with the maximum spread of errors occurring at the band edges. The magnitude of bowtie errors can be reduced by reducing the fractional bandwidth the phase shifter operates over for a given calibration frequency. In channelized applications, use of multiple frequency tables can significantly reduce bowtie errors.
3.1.1.4.1.4 Temperature Drift

The saturation magnetization and remanent induction of the ferrite material, which are key determinants of phase shift, are both functions of temperature. Through careful choice of the ferrite material, changes in these parameters over the operating temperature range are minimized, but cannot be totally eliminated. The residual errors, however, can be largely compensated with the electronic driver. Typically the phase shifters are characterized for phase vs. command at several temperatures across the operating range. A temperature sensor is placed near the ferrite element and the driver electronics reads the temperature autonomously, interpolates a phase vs. command table for that temperature, and fires an appropriate current pulse for the desired phase setting. Using interpolated tables, temperature drift is generally not a significant contributor to overall phase shifter errors.
3.1.1.4.1.5 End-of-Life Drift

The ferrite and ceramic materials that make up the RF section of the phase shifter are essentially impervious to radiation and aging effects. The phase shifters electronic driver, however, contains silicon integrated circuits, power MOSFETs, and other components which exhibit some sensitivity to radiation exposure. End-of-life drifts show up as systematic phase vs. command errors that increase with time. To compensate for them, the electronic drivers worst-case circuit analysis is used to predict the magnitude of the drifts and the BFN is tested to an accordingly reduced beginning-of-life accuracy requirement.

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3.1.1.4.1.6 Driver Noise

As with any analog control circuit, ferrite phase shifter drivers introduce some level of random noise into the phase shifter setting process. This error contribution is minimized through component selection, circuit design, and careful printed circuit board layout. 3.1.1.5 BFN Setting Errors The best way to evaluate the impact of ferrite PAC errors on any given BFN algorithm or mode of operation is to code up the error model of Figure 20 in a computer simulation and step it through the algorithm under consideration. EMS has developed such codes and on some programs, EMS software module is actually used as part of the flight acceptance performance verification for the antenna subsystem. We were able to demonstrate sufficient agreement between our model and the measured BFN performance that our customer was able to certify the antenna subsystem by measuring the subsystem in a subset of the possible BFN configurations, and simulating performance on a much larger set of BFN configurations. In assessing BFN setting accuracies, values for the error terms described above can be calculated over the desired environments and frequency ranges using heritage data, Sparameter simulations of the BFNs and EMS-proprietary phase shifter analysis codes. The error model must then be stepped through representative command sequences and the PACs RMS weight setting error, RMS = E

( ) was calculated. As described above,

2

RMS

is

independent of the desired weight setting and can therefore be included in most system simulations in a straightforward manner. For a typical PAC-based BFN operating over temperature ranges, lifetimes, and frequency bands typical of communications satellites, the result of this simulation is RMS = 0.02 in the small step mode. As noted above, this RMS error is normalized to the minimum loss state of the PAC such that the command range of the PAC corresponds to the unit circle in the complex plane. Small step mode is defined as the situation in which at least the last four PAC settings have been within a radius of magnitude 0.1 in the complex plane from the previous setting in the sequence. The distribution of this error across the error terms described above is given in Table 5.

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Table 5. Distribution of error terms for the RF multi-beam nuller

Error Term Temperature Error Ferrite Hysteresis Error for Small Command Steps PAC Characterization (Linearization) Error Random Noise Error Lifetime Drift Error Frequency Error at Band Edges

RMS E 6% 7% 7% 17% 28% 36%

3.1.2 Packaging Options for Variable BFN Components Ferrite PACs and VPDs can be packaged in standard waveguide housings, lightweight electroformed waveguide, or using EMS patented microstrip-compatible hyrid mode phase shifter technology. These packaging options are described in the sections below.

3.1.2.1 Standard Waveguide Figure 21 shows a variable power divider followed by dual phase shifters implemented in reduced-height WR-112 waveguide. The unit shown is a spaceflight assembly for the DSCS III BFN. Other examples of standard waveguide construction were shown in Figure 16 and Figure 18. These assemblies use predominantly machined aluminum housings that are bolted together and interconnected with conventional waveguide flanges.

Figure 21. A VPD followed by dual phase shifters implemented in reduced-height WR-112 waveguide.

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The advantages of this type of construction are its very low insertion loss, its excellent pathto-path phase matching and tracking, and its extensive spaceflight heritage. Forty-three BFNs of this type construction are currently flying on fifteen military communications satellites. Additional BFNs of this type construction will fly on the Advanced EHF spacecraft. A disadvantage of the machined waveguide construction is that the mass of the assembly tends to be relatively high. This can be mitigated by the use of lightweight components such as the magnesium magic tee and hybrid shown in Figure 21. Also, as discussed above for the switched BFNs, the best overall combination of size, mass and RF performance is always achieved when the spacecraft prime contractor and the BFN provider work together from the early phases of antenna concept development. Since ferrite phase/amplitude control elements are essentially impervious to radiation, they and their associated waveguide runs can be machined into housing walls or supporting structures. They can in fact be used to shield other less hard electronics. 3.1.2.2 Microstrip Great savings in system mass relative to a standard waveguide implementation can be realized through the use of EMS patented microstrip-compatible hybrid mode phase shifter technology. Figure 22 shows examples of an 8-way VPD network with output phase shifters (left) and of a PAC (right), both built using hybrid mode phase shifter technology for operation at X-band. Figure 23 shows a graphic depiction of the size reduction realized through use of this approach. Here a waveguide and a microstrip VPD, both designed for the 7.9-8.4 GHz frequency band are compared.

Figure 22. A VPD network (left) and a PAC (right) implemented in microstrip using hybrid mode phase shifter technology. Both of these units operate at X-band

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Figure 23. A comparison of standard waveguide and microstrip implementations of the same X-band VPD.

The reduced size and mass of the microstrip implementation comes at the cost of slightly higher insertion loss. While a waveguide VPD at 7-8 GHz would have an insertion loss of 0.4 dB, the insertion loss of a microstrip version would be approximately 0.8 dB. This is still far lower-loss than can be achieved with a MMIC-based BFN, and the unit exhibits the same excellent channel-to-channel tracking over frequency and life that is exhibited by the waveguide ferrite implementation. EMS hybrid mode phase shifter technology has spaceflight heritage and is applicable at frequencies up to 35 GHz. The microstrip implementation does not have high power handling capability and is generally only used in receive BFN applications. Its setting accuracy and resolution is equivalent to those of the waveguide BFN. 3.1.2.3 Lightweight Waveguide Figure 24 shows an implementation of a Ku-band VPD tree using EMS lightweight electroformed waveguide technology. In this approach, waveguide structures are constructed with very thin walls (~0.005) from an electrodeposited material that has high strength and that is well matched to ferrite in terms of thermal coefficient of expansion. The waveguides feature an internal silver plate for low RF losses. In addition to the waveguide fabrication approach, EMS has developed a welding process to join the flanges of these thin-walled components without the use of screws or other fasteners. This weld process leaves only

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silver-to-silver contact internal to the waveguide, so there is no passive intermodulation (PIM) concern with the process.

Figure 24. Thin-walled electroformed waveguide with welded flanges offers significant weight savings over conventional waveguide.

Lightweight waveguide BFNs are as low loss as standard waveguide BFNs and generally weigh about a third as much. In addition to variable BFNs this technology also has applications in fixed power divider networks and waveguide interconnects. EMS does not currently have spaceflight heritage with this technology, though the processes involved are closely related to currently qualified processes.
3.2 Examples of Variable BFNs Ferrite-based variable BFNs provide on-orbit reconfigurability for the US Militarys DSCS III spacecraft. They also provide anti-jam adaptive nulling for the MILSTAR spacecraft. The DSCS III transmit BFN and the MILSTAR nulling BFN are described below as examples of the breadth of this technology. 3.2.1 MILSTAR II Nulling Antenna BFN

Figure 25 shows the anti-jam adaptive nulling antenna beam former for the MILSTAR MDR payload. It is a 13-channel unit. Each RF input signal passes through a MMIC low noise amplifier and then passes to a PAC like that shown in Figure 18. The weighted RF signals are then summed in a waveguide power combiner. All of the millimeter-wave components are in the silver assembly on the left side of the photo. The black box on the right houses the driver and control electronics assembly. In order to hold deep nulls across the frequency band of interest, all paths through the millimeter-wave assembly must track each other to within a few degrees of phase and a fraction of a dB in amplitude.

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Figure 25. The MILSTAR nulling antenna beam forming network.

Figure 26. The MILSTAR BFN integrated with the multiple beam antenna (courtesy Northrop Grumman Space and Technology).

By careful design of the ferrite elements, waveguide runs and power combining network, the required channel-to-channel tracking over frequency and life can be achieved. Among the

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advantages of ferrite control components include the broadband impedance match, low loss, and flat frequency response that make this possible. To hold the same tracking over temperature, the BFN uses electronic temperature compensation: the BFN is fully characterized at several temperatures across its range and these data are stored in look-up tables in the control electronics. The controller then routinely measures the BFNs temperature, interpolates the tables and compensates for temperature changes by offsetting the command pulses appropriately. In this particular application, the BFN is always updated at a rate that is fast compared to the changes in temperature, so the driver electronics virtually eliminate temperature drifts in the mm-wave network. Figure 26 shows the MILSTAR BFN integrated into the nulling antenna
3.2.2 DSCS III BFNs

Figure 27 shows a flightset of DSCS III variable beam forming networks. In the foreground are the two 19-port transmit BFNs and behind is the 61-port receive BFN. The receive BFN offers full amplitude and phase control of its ports. Each feed horn is connected to a 360 phase shifter, the outputs of which go to a binary VPD tree. The transmit BFNs use amplitude control only, consisting of just a binary tree of VPDs. The transmit BFNs, operating from 7.25 to 7.75 GHz, have less than 2 dB of loss. The receive BFNs, operating from 7.9 to 8.4 GHz, have less than 3 dB loss.

Figure 27. A flightset of DSCS III variable beam forming networks

The DSCS BFNs are sufficiently well temperature-controlled by the spacecraft that electronic temperature compensation is not used in routine operation. The driver and control electronics are in fact often powered off completely for months at a time between

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reconfigurations of the antenna beams. Use of passive remanent devices for BFN weight setting elements thus results in power consumption savings as well as operational simplicity. The photo of Figure 27 also illustrates how the beam forming network lends itself to innovative packaging solutions. DSCS III uses waveguide lens MBAs that are fed by arrays of feed horns in the focal plane. As can be seen in the photo, the BFN is actually wrapped around the circumference of the lens and serves as part of the structure holding the feed horn cluster. With a collaborative design process, the BFN provider and antenna designer can take advantage synergies such as this to minimize overall system size and mass.

4 Summary
The ferrite-based passive beam forming network provides a cost-effective, well-proven approach to achieving on-orbit reconfigurability of the antenna patterns of a spacecraft. BFNs can provide simple switched spot beams or continuously variable beam shapes. Figure 28 shows a sampling of beam forming networks that EMS Technologies has delivered for demanding spaceflight applications over the years.

MILSTAR EHF UHF FOLLOW ON

MILSTAR NULLER

DSCS

1976-1987

1983-1997

1985-1987

1990-1993

1992-1997

2004

MILSTAR SHF

MILSTAR CAB

ACTS

AEHF NULLER

Figure 28. A sampling of EMS Technologies' heritage in spaceflight beamforming networks.