Blindness removal in arrays of rectangular waveguides using dielectrically loaded hard walls

Abstract

We analyze an infinite planar array of open-ended rectangular waveguides in which the E-plane walls are loaded with dielectric slabs in order to create a hard boundary condition. The analysis is done by using the mode-matching method with Floquet modes in the exterior region. The results show that the hard walls remove the blind spots otherwise present in the element patterns of wide-angle scanning arrays. This occurs both for rectangular and for triangular lattices. In addition, the array becomes better matched to free-space in a rectangular lattice. In limited-scan arrays of large square waveguides, the use of the hard walls increases the array gain by 0.9 dB, it reduces the grating lobe level in the H plane by 11 dB and considerably decreases the difference between the array characteristics in the E and H planes.