Patent ID: 11909117
Assignee: BATTELLE MEMORIAL INSTITUTE
Field: Telecommunications (Electrical engineering)
Classification: CPC H | IPC H

Claim 15:
16. A modular radio frequency (RF) transmit and/or receive method comprising:
providing N base units where N is an integer greater than or equal to two and wherein each base unit includes a differential segmented aperture (DSA) tile including a support board and a two-dimensional (2D) array of electrically conductive tapered projections disposed on the support board with the electrically conductive tapered projections tapering in a direction extending away from the support board, wherein neighboring pairs of the electrically conductive tapered projections form RF pixels;
arranging the N DSA tiles of the N base units to form an RF aperture; and
switching the RF aperture between a first operating mode and a second operating mode wherein:
in the first operating mode, the N base units are operated as at least two independent subsets with each subset operating as an RF transmitter or receiver independently of the other subsets; and
in the second operating mode all N base units coherently combine as a single phased array RF transmitter or receiver.