Thinning and Weighting of Planar/Conformal Arrays Considering Mutual Coupling Effects

You‐Feng Cheng ,Wei Shao,Ran Zhang,Xiao Ding,Miao Yu

doi:10.1155/2016/7521723

Abstract

Based on an improved active element pattern (AEP) technique, a novel effective method for sidelobe suppression considering mutual coupling (MC) in planar and conformal sparse arrays is proposed in this paper. A thinning and weighting process that includes the thinning module, optimization module, and far-field calculation module is presented, and three key points, namely, the modified AEP modeling, far-field calculation of planar and conformal thinned arrays, and modified thinning strategy, are highlighted. As an effective optimization algorithm, the differential evolution algorithm (DEA) is adopted in order to achieve low sidelobe. Several numerical examples are shown to validate the consistency and effectiveness of the proposed synthesis approach. With the first use of the AEP technique for the synthesis of sparse arrays, the planar and conformal microstrip arrays with the desired array filling factor are studied to obtain the expected sidelobe level (SLL).

Highlights

The sparse or thinned array is considered as one of the main topics of innovative phased array antennas [1]
Since the interelement spacing may be larger than the Nyquist limit and the element locations are inhomogeneous, thinned arrays may have a deteriorative sidelobe level (SLL) which is a negative factor for the performance of arrays
In [4,5,6,7], low-sidelobe synthesis of large planar array antennas was completed by using iterative Fourier transforms

Summary

Introduction

The sparse or thinned array is considered as one of the main topics of innovative phased array antennas [1]. The abovementioned articles mainly focus on optimizing the excitation weights or element positions to reduce the sidelobe level and rarely consider the mutual coupling (MC) that has tremendous impacts on the array pattern when calculating the far-field characteristics. A novel low-sidelobe synthesis method for planar and conformal arrays based on a modified AEP technique is proposed. Detailed AEP extraction steps of both planar and conformal thinned arrays are included in the far-field calculation.

Thinned Array Synthesis Process

Numerical Examples

Conclusion