Irregular Polyomino-Shaped Subarrays for Space-Based Active Arrays

Abstract

This paper presents new results showing the application of polyomino-based subarrays to limited field of view and wideband, wide-angle scanning. This technology can reduce the number of phase controls in arrays used for limited sector coverage or the number of time delay devices for wideband radar or communications, and so can reduce the cost of space-based active arrays. We concentrate on the wideband application. Results are presented by comparing the gain and peak sidelobe results of irregular polyomino subarray-based arrays with those of rectangular subarrays. It is shown that using irregular polyomino subarrays can result in a major decrease in sidelobes while presenting, in most cases, only a few tenths of a dB gain reduction compared to rectangular subarrays.

Beamforming properties and design of the phased arrays in terms of irregular subarrays

“…Other satellite systems sometimes scan a high-directivity beam over even smaller angles to do detailed mapping [30]. Besides, fast electrical scanning in a narrow sector can also be combined with wide-angle mechanical rotation of the whole array.…”

“…It has been recognised that the LFOV and WBWS applications for subarray technology exhibit similar behaviour and suffer the same deficiencies [30]. In fact, the above-mentioned applications (LFOV, WBWS and MSB) place similar requirements on subarray technology and array architecture.…”

An Interval Arithmetic-based robustness evaluation of sub-arrayed linear array antenna architectures

“…Sub-arraying techniques are commonly used in the synthesis of array antennas, especially for large arrays as they allow to group the elements into sub-arrays reducing the number of control points in the feeding network [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11]. The reduction in the complexity of the antenna architecture allows a sensible decrease in costs and a simplification in array manufacturing.…”

Mutual Coupling Effects and Their Compensation in a Time-Delay Scanned Array of Irregular Subarrays

“…Our recent studies [1], [2] have shown that using irregular subarrays can greatly reduce quantization lobes that would otherwise result from the use of contiguous rectangular subarrays. Moreover, array cost can be reduced by filling the array Manuscript with a single type of polyomino subarray that is rotated in increments of 90 and flipped, to occupy eight different states, and by choosing the subarray size to be a power of two so that the subarrays can be fed using lossless, orthogonal power dividers.…”

“…Moreover, array cost can be reduced by filling the array Manuscript with a single type of polyomino subarray that is rotated in increments of 90 and flipped, to occupy eight different states, and by choosing the subarray size to be a power of two so that the subarrays can be fed using lossless, orthogonal power dividers. Thus, there is no added complexity [1] at the subarray level, and the only complexity added is that the subarray feed locations are no longer on a rectangular grid. This change is readily addressed in the layout of the array corporate feed.…”