Synergy in design of phased array antennas for modern radio astronomy and wireless communication systems

Abstract

This paper accentuates the similarity in the requirements of the radiation characteristics of antenna elements used in directive beam-steering arrays for radio astronomy and wireless communication systems, i.e. aperture phased array radio telescopes and base transceiver stations. Using two reference antenna elements the equivalence between two beamforming strategies commonly implemented in wireless communication and radio astronomy systems is illustrated. For the case of maximum power receivers it is demonstrated that the methodology followed to assess and characterize the performance of an antenna element in wireless communication systems can readily be implemented to compare the field-of-view (FoV) coverage of antenna elements in radio astronomy applications. Finally, using an ideal reference element, it is shown that a single figure-of-merit - field-of-view coverage gain - can be used to compare the performance of antenna elements over an entire field-of-view coverage.