A Phased Array Antenna with New Elements Designed Using Source Transformations

Dipankar Mitra,Jeffery W Allen,Jerika Cleveland,Monica S Allen,Jacob Lewis,Benjamin D Braaten,Sukrith Dev

doi:10.3390/app11073162

Dipankar Mitra, Jeffery W Allen + Show 5 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/app11073162

Copy DOI

Abstract

Transformation electromagnetics/optics (TE/TO) has been shown to be a useful technique in designing electromagnetic devices with very unique properties. Here, the concepts of transformation optics for single elements is extended to an array of “pinwheel” shaped elements for the first time. Through full-wave finite element analysis (FEA), it is shown that a transformed “pinwheel” linear array can be designed to operate identically to a uniformly spaced linear dipole array. Thus, the “pinwheel” antenna array will maintain all the advantages of array processing of a simple dipole antenna array. The proposed method has applications in structurally integrated and conformal phased arrays for wireless communications, radars, and sensing where structural and mechanical constrains do not align with antenna performance.

Highlights

The concept of transformation electromagnetics/optics (TE/TO), introduced by Pendry et al [1] and Leonhardt [2], refers to the manipulation of electromagnetic fields through a complex electromagnetic medium whose constitutive parameters are distinctly determined by the transformation
The use of source transformations yields fascinating opportunities for the design of complex radiation structures by enabling the fabrication of unique structures with engineered material properties, allowing the transformed geometries to mimic the performance of original ones, which is especially useful when physical constraints require spatial changes to be made to the source
Kwon [17] proposed a TO-based circular array design, which performs as a series of line sources embedded in a rectangular metamaterial media