Synthesis of uniform amplitude sparse linear dipole arrays with multiple shaped‐beam patterns by sharing element rotations and positions

Abstract

In this article, a novel method of synthesizing sparse linear dipole arrays with multiple shaped-beam patterns is proposed by finding a set of common element rotations and positions along with individual excitation phases. Compared with most shaped multiple-pattern synthesis methods using nonuniform amplitude excitations, the proposed method adopts the uniform amplitude excitation and exploits the element rotation as a supplementary degree of array freedom. Such a method enables each amplifier to work at its optimal level and avoids the usage of unequal power dividers for the array feeding network, thus reducing the cost, space, and weight of the radiation system. The shaped multiple-pattern synthesis problem with multiple constraints including the peak sidelobe level, cross-polarization level, minimum element spacing, and array length is formulated and optimized by particle swarm optimization. Two examples for synthesizing sparse linear dipole arrays with multiple shaped-beam patterns are conducted to validate the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed method. Synthesis results show that the proposed method can save antenna elements and avoid the usage of unequal power dividers for test cases. Moreover, the full-wave simulations are also conducted in these two examples.