Analysis of antennas on large platforms using equivalent model method

Abstract

Installed radiation pattern and isolation are critical performance indicators for antennas on large platforms. Prediction of these indicators is highly desirable for antenna placement. Conventional simulation methods require a detailed geometric model of the antenna to be mounted which is, in practice, unavailable from antenna's datasheets. This talk will introduce an effective and efficient equivalent model method for the analysis of two types of airborne antennas — patch antenna and slotted waveguide antenna (SWA) with information available on antenna's datasheets. By taking the radiation mechanism of these two types of antennas into account, the proposed equivalent models yield almost identical radiating and scattering performances to those of the original antennas. Furthermore, it requires less design parameters than conventional general-purpose equivalent models, leading to a faster optimization process. Simulation results show that, by using the proposed equivalent model, the installed radiation patterns of the patch antenna and the SWA can be accurately predicted. This feature is also valid in the situation of patch antenna array and SWA array. For the isolation between antennas, additional simulation runs always make the prediction more time-consuming. A combination of the proposed equivalent model and the reaction theorem is then developed which efficiently estimates antenna isolation with limited information. Moreover, a drastic reduction in computation and storage costs is also achieved for the multi-scale simulation due to the simple structure of the proposed equivalent model. Therefore, the proposed equivalent model method is highly suitable for the analysis of antennas on large platforms.