COMPUTER DESIGN #4 (Computer Design Books) (No. 4)
by Harvey K. Schuman
Category: Antenna arrays

Analytical techniques presented thus far for treatment of unequally spaced antenna arrays have pointed out that desirable radiation characteristics can be achieved using only the interelement spacings as design parameters. The advantage is that the excitation amplitudes required can be either uniform or nearly uniform across the array, thereby allowing use of a simple feed system for excitation of the array elements and minimizing adverse mutual coupling effects. The design methods have found only limited applications, however, since results are not always reliable due to the approximations necessary to simplify the analytical work. Various computational methods have been presented to circumvent this problem, but these in turn suffer disadvantage in that they provide no control over the ultimate positions of the array elements, giving rise to unrealistic spacing configurations and severe realization problems through mutual coupling. In this work a new computational technique is presented for designing unequally spaced arrays. The method is particularly suitable for use with modern high-speed electronic computers, and allows certain practical restrictions or constraints to be included in the design procedure by allowing use of a limited number of different excitation amplitude levels. The result in any given example is an unequally spaced linear array designed for a specified sidelobe level, with a number of amplitude levels appropriate for insuring that prespecified spacing restrictions are met. Thus, the practical difficulties encountered with the results of other computational schemes are largely avoided. Several examples are given, and both theoretical and experimental results are included. (Author).