5 ms·

Maybe it's the first use of phased arrays for consumer satellite data terminals, but I believe phased arrays were mass-produced (and still are) for radar chips

• throwup238 2y ago
  They were also produced for WirelessHD enabled TVs in the late 2010s. I.e the SiBeam SB9210 chip
• raducu 2y ago
  >. for radar chips -- e.g. in automotive. The hacker in me is dying to know what the starlink antenna could pe re-purposed to do in terms or radar. Has anobody tried it or at least did the math of what it could do in that regard?
  • f_devd 2y ago
    As long as you can position yourself behind the phase-shifters and the frequency is high enough (usually > 10GHz) it should be fairly easy to do.
• awelkie 2y ago
  Good point. To my knowledge most of these radars are MIMO, which are more capable than phased arrays but it's a different architecture. Also these radar systems usually have on the order of 10 antenna elements (although this number is increasing), whereas the starlink terminal has something like 1000 antenna elements, if I remember correctly.
• zeristor 2y ago
  There was the 'Squarial' from 1990 used by BSB, this was 'just' a receiver though. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squarial https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squarial