RF DIRECTIONAL MODULATION TECHNIQUE USING A SWITCHED ANTENNA ARRAY FOR COMMUNICATION AND DIRECTION-FINDING APPLICATIONS

A RF directional modulation technique using a switched antenna array is proposed for communication and direction-finding applications. The main idea is that a baseband modulation signal is transmitted by the switched antenna array. The phase center of the transmit signal is moved by the feeding line of each element from the left to the right. In this way, the data information and Doppler frequency shift information are modulated into a transmit signal constellation simultaneously. Therefore, this constellation is a scrambled constellation compared with traditional baseband modulation signal, which varies with the azimuth angle information of the receiver. For the receiver with a single antenna, a differential correlation algorithm is employed to demodulate the data information, and an azimuth angle estimation algorithm is also developed to extract the azimuth angle information from this scrambled constellation. Simulation results show that this RF directional modulation technique offers a comprehensive scheme for communication and direction-finding from the point view of RF modulation technique.