Patent ID: 7446728

Claim:
A method for constructing an array antenna system from a plurality of antenna elements on an array of any geometry, the method comprising: specifying an antenna system radiation pattern function that describes the transmission or reception pattern of the antenna system; determining an element radiation pattern function for each element of the antenna system, each element radiation function including a basic element pattern specification, a frequency of operation and the spacing parameters of an element that specify the location of the element in the antenna system; determining a set of values for the spacing parameters of an element; forming a set of functions whose elements are the element radiation pattern functions together with the element spacing parameters and imposing a condition on the elements of the set such that the set of functions is identifiable as a first frame; determining a second frame that is a dual of the first frame, the second frame having an equal number of elements as the first frame; determining an element weight coefficient for each antenna element based on the elements of the second frame and the specified antenna system radiation pattern function; and constructing the antenna system from the plurality of antenna elements according to the set of spacing parameters and determined element weight coefficients for each element at the frequency of operation wherein the array antenna system is a three dimensional ( 3 D) array of antenna elements; and wherein the value of the spacing parameter of each dement causes the spacing between adjacent elements of the 3D array to be uniform or non-uniform.