A high performance phased antenna array design and analysis using fast algorithm

Abstract

Phased array antennas have found an increased application in radar and, more recently, in satellite and cellular communications. The most recent application concerns smart antennas in cellular base stations. Despite increased popularity, the design and development of a planar phased array antenna remains a challenging task. In this paper, a high preference phased antenna array is designed. Compared with the traditional one, this type of antenna array has a lower sidelobe characteristic. The sidelobe lever is reduced by using the taper structure. For different scanning angle, the comparison between calculated and measured results in general is in very good agreement. Moreover, the precorrected fast Fourier transform (P-FFT) method is employed to accelerate the entire computational process to reduce significantly both the memory requirement and computational time for large arrays. Very good agreement has been obtained between calculated and measured performance of such arrays. Calculated results of radiation patterns return loss, and gain of the arrays are shown and the experimental results show reasonable agreement with the theory and simulation.