Studying the Noise Performance of CORPS Beam Forming Networks

The classical noise wave theory is employed in the field of Coherently Radiating Periodic Structures (CORPS). The coherent properties of these type of networks allow the distribution of a signal across the network and the in-phase recombination of each distributed component at an output port. Whereas these distribution and recombination processes are coherent for the signal and hence do not incur in power loss, the intrinsically incoherent noise contributions incident at the port terminations are not sum coherently. This is especially significant in presence of incident noise powers much larger than the intrinsically generated thermal noise. As a result, an enhancement in terms of Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) is demonstrated analytically by means of noise wave theory. The maximum achievable SNR enhancement depends on the internal structure of the CORPS network. Validation of the proposed theory is provided by means of a commercial circuital software.