A Ku-Band Broadband 8-Channel 8-Beam Phased-Array Receiver With Polarization Agility and Beam Reconfiguration for SATCOM Applications

This brief presents a Ku-band broadband 8-channel 8-beam phased-array receiver with polarization agility and dynamic beam reconfiguration, addressing the growing demand for Low Earth Orbit (LEO) and high-throughput satellite communications (SATCOM). The receiver chip integrates 32 independently controlled amplitude and phase channels, utilizing an innovatively designed reconfigurable power divider network to flexibly support single-beam, dual-beam, four-beam, and eight-beam modes, while enabling dynamic selection between horizontal and vertical polarization. Furthermore, the receiver system adopts a hybrid architecture combining a 6-bit active vector-modulated phase shifter and a 6-bit passive attenuator to achieve high-precision amplitude and phase control. Measurement results demonstrate a wide operational frequency range from 10 GHz to 15 GHz, achieving a remarkable channel gain of 24.5 dB and an input 1-dB gain compression point (IP1dB) exceeding 15.8 dBm. The root mean square (RMS) phase and amplitude errors are below 5.19° and 0.24 dB, respectively. Fabricated using a 0.18 $\mu $ m SiGe Bi-CMOS process, the chip features a compact area of $6.7 \times 5.3\,\text {mm}^{2}$ and a total power consumption of less than 465 mW.