A dual‐polarized cylindrical conformal array antenna suitable for unmanned aerial vehicles

A dual‐polarized X‐band conformal array antenna is presented for unmanned aerial vehicles with polarimetric radars/sensors. Starting from the planar structure, the array antenna consisted of sixteen 2 × 2 subarrays is conformal to the cylinders with various curvature radii to fit the payload box of the airborne vehicle. The return losses are almost constant even if the curvature radius changes. Measured radiation patterns are compared with various curvatures at the same frequencies. The array can be easily placed on the aircraft payload or fuselage due to its ultra thin thickness, ultra lightweight, and conformal structure, which has potential airborne applications in polarimetric radar surveillance, remote sensing, and wireless communications. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J RF and Microwave CAE, 2011.     

A two‐layer beam‐steering array antenna with 4 × 4 modified Butler matrix fed network for switched beam application

This paper presents a novel two layers beam‐steering array antenna fed by a 4 × 4 modified Butler matrix. Each of the radiation elements have been replaced by a collection of 2 × 2 circularly polarized (CP) square patches, which joined together by a modified sequentially rotated feed network. The antenna array consists of 2 × 5 CP square patches, which connected to four ring sequential rotation and fed by butler matrix. The proposed Butler matrix which plays a role as beam‐steering feed network consists of four novel 90° circular patch couplers and two 45° half circular patch phase shifter. Altogether, using of a 2 × 5 phased array antenna and a modified Butler matrix cause to empower array antenna for covering frequency range between 4.67 to 6.09GHz, the maximum gain of 14.98 dB and 3‐dB axial ratio bandwidth of 1.2GHz (4.9~6.1GHz) is attained.     

Analysis and design of dual‐polarized microstrip antenna array

A new dual‐polarized microstrip antenna array is presented. Diagonal feeding of the square patch with two ports is proposed to obtain dual linear polarization. A novel coplanar feedline network is also presented for the dual‐polarized array. For engineering purposes, a CAD‐oriented method of analysis is developed. The measured results demonstrate high isolation between the two input ports. The array has simple structure and is easy to further combine to form larger coplanar arrays. ©1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Int J RF and Microwave CAE 9: 42–48, 1999.     

Near optimal conformal antenna array structure for direction‐of‐arrival estimation

This article determines the near optimal conformal antenna array structure for direction‐of‐arrival (DOA) estimation through a comprehensive study on the planar and usual conformal antenna arrays including the cylindrical and hemispherical by using the directive antenna elements in all designs. To model the hemispherical structure, an improved multi‐face antenna array with three different tilts is proposed and compared with previous works in order to investigate the tilt effect and obtain the conclusive results. The Cramer‐Rao lower bound, multiple signal classification, and root‐mean‐square error algorithms are utilized to evaluate the estimation accuracy of all conformal structures. Finally, by comparing the estimation precision of all conformal structures it is shown that the purposed multi‐face structure as the hemispherical model has a better performance than other conformal structures in terms of the maximum angular coverage of the spatial resource. Moreover, the proposed study method in this article fully examines the impacts of the different conformal antennas geometric structure on the DOA estimation performance by involving the directive antennas radiation patterns.     

Design and development of virtual instrument for fault diagnosis in fractal antenna array

This paper deals with the development of a virtual instrument for fault diagnosis in fractal antenna array using Lab‐VIEW software. Faults in antenna array are considered on the basis of the radiation pattern. In this study, theta and gain values of radiation patterns for each fault are used in Lab‐VIEW for curve fitting. An artificial neural network (ANN) has been developed for fitted data points using the Leavenberg Marquard algorithm in MATLAB software and mean square error (MSE) is minimized. The designed ANN model has been embedded in the virtual instrument. The proposed virtual instrument system gets test patterns as input and generates output for several faults present in antenna array. Simulated and measured results of the fractal antenna array are validated experimentally. This virtual instrument model has not been developed for fractal antenna array so far.     

A polarization‐reconfigurable array design based on mode combination technique

This article reports a novel polarization‐reconfigurable antenna array using the technique of mode combination (MC). It can electronically alter its polarization states between left‐hand circular polarization mode, right‐hand circular polarization mode, and linear polarization (LP) mode. The antenna array consists of 2 × 2 microstrip antenna elements with one L‐slot on each square patch and two PIN diodes located in the slot region. Instead of degenerating circular polarization (CP) and LP modes by exciting different radiation parts of the antenna element, the LP one is combined by orthogonal CP modes generated by adjacent elements of the proposed antenna array. To verify the concept, a prototype is manufactured and tested. Experimental results show that the proposed antenna has an overlapped ?10 dB impedance bandwidth of around 11.2% for both CP modes and the LP one. The realized maximum gains are around 7.5 dB for the CP modes and 5.6 dB for the LP mode, which are satisfactory for wireless local area network in wireless communication systems.     

Ka‐band phased patch array antenna integrated with a PET‐controlled phase shifter

In this article, a 4 × 4 linear‐phased patch array antenna, consisting of four 1 × 4 patch subarrays and a true time‐delay multiline phase shifter, is proposed on a thin film liquid crystal polymer substrate at Ka‐band. The patch antenna is designed with a gain of 6 dBi at 35 GHz and a bandwidth of 23% centered at 35 GHz. To enhance the gain and symmetrize the beam patterns of the 4 × 4 array, a 1 × 4 patch subarray in the E‐plane was designed and characterized. The subarray produces an enhanced gain of 11 dBi and a wide beamwidth of ±38° in the H‐plane for beam steering. The proposed phase shifter comprises a 1 × 4 microstrip line power splitter and a piezoelectric transducer‐controlled phase perturber. A large phase variation of up to 370° and a low insertion loss of less than 2 dB were demonstrated for the phase shifter at Ka‐band. The integrated phased array attains a gain of 15.6 dBi, and a continuous true‐time delay beam steering of up to 33 ± 1° from 31 to 39 GHz. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J RF and Microwave CAE 26:199–208, 2016.     

High gain substrate integrated waveguide beam scanning antenna with sub‐array elements

A method to enhance the gain of substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) beam scanning antenna is proposed in this article. 2 × 2 SIW cavity‐backed sub‐arrays are employed in array design. The antenna is constructed on two layers. The top layer places four SIW cavity‐backed sub‐arrays as radiating elements and the bottom layer is an SIW transmission line to feed the sub‐arrays. Beam scanning feature can be obtained due to the frequency dispersion. Moreover, through separating radiators to the other layer and using 2 × 2 SIW cavity‐backed sub‐arrays as radiating parts, the antenna gain is improved significantly. For a linear array, 4.1 to 6.8 dB gain enhancement is achieved compared to a conventional SIW beam scanning antenna with the same length. Then, the linear array is expanded to form a planar array for further gain improvement. A 64‐element planar beam scanning array is designed, fabricated, and tested. Experimental results show that the proposed planar array has a bandwidth from 18.5 GHz to 21. 5 GHz with beam scanning angle from ?5° to 11.5° and gain in the range of 20.5 to 21.8 dBi. The proposed high gain beam scanning antennas have potential applications in radar detection and imaging.     

Single layer CPSSA array with change polarization diversity in broadband application

The present study proposes a novel broadband circularly polarized (CP) multiple‐input multiple‐output antenna array designed for C‐band applications. The first step was the introduction of a reconfigurable circularly polarized square slot antenna (CPSSA) capable of changing polarization diversity, which could cover impedance bandwidth (BW) from 4.48 to 8.21 GHz with 1.9 GHz of ?3 dB axial ratio (AR) BW. Then, a feed network composed of 90° and 180° couplers, a crossover, and delay lines was presented. The CPSSA with two metalized via‐holes adopted with two ports polarization diversity fed the networks. A number of reconfigurable CP array antennas using the polarization diversity technique have been presented so far. However, given that the proposed layout designed in a single layer had advantages of reduced antenna size and increased antenna gain and ARBW, this approach has received due attention over recent years. Another promising feature of this approach is its capability to change the polarization diversity by rotation of phases in the array feed network using PIN diodes.     

Circularly polarized 1 × 4 square slot array antenna by utilizing compacted modified butler matrix and branch line coupler

Circularly polarized (CP), beam steering antennas are preferred to reduce the disruptive effects such as multi‐path fading and co‐channel interference in wireless communications systems. Nowadays, intensive studies have been carried out not only on the specific antenna array design but also their feeding networks to achieve circular polarization and beam steering characteristics. A compact broadband CP antenna array with a low loss feed network design is aimed in this work. To improve impedance and CP bandwidth, a feed network with modified Butler matrix and a compact ultra‐wideband square slot antenna element are designed. With this novel design, more than 3 GHz axial ratio BW is achieved. In this study, a broadband meander line compact double box coupler with impedance bandwidth over 4.8‐7 GHz frequency and the phase error less than 3° is used. Also the measured impedance bandwidth of the proposed beam steering array antenna is 60% (from 4.2 to 7.8 GHz). The minimum 3 dB axial ratio bandwidth between ports, support 4.6–6.8 GHz frequency range. The measured peak gain of the proposed array antenna is 8.9 dBic that could scan solid angle about ～91 degree. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J RF and Microwave CAE 26:146–153, 2016.     

A coplanar‐waveguide‐fed planar integrated cavity backed slotted antenna array using TE33 mode

This short communication presents a substrate integrated waveguide planar cavity slotted antenna array. The proposed antenna array, excited in its TE₃₃ higher mode, incorporates a grounded coplanar‐waveguide (CPW) CPW‐feeding excitation mechanism. The electromagnetic energy is coupled to the air through 3 × 3 slot array etched on top metallic layer. The proposed antenna operates in the X‐band for the frequency range around the 10 to 11 GHz with resonances at 10.4 and 10.8 GHz frequencies. The proposed antenna array was fabricated and tested. Experimental results show good impedance matching with enhanced radiation characteristics, in terms of peak gain, cross‐polarization level, and low back‐radiation. The proposed antenna has the advantages of low‐footprints, lightweight, high gain, low‐cost, and ease of integration with other electronic circuits. With these characteristics, the proposed antenna array can find its applications in compact wireless digital transceivers.     

A dual‐feed microstrip grid array antenna for balanced or unbalanced operation

The development of a dual‐feed microstrip grid array antenna for either balanced or unbalanced operation to radiate pencil‐beam patterns has been described. As an example, the dual‐feed microstrip grid array antenna on RT/duroid 5880 substrate with a size of 60 × 60 × 0.787 mm³ or 4.8λ × 4.8λ × 0.063λ at 24 GHz were designed and fabricated. The measured results show that the dual‐feed microstrip grid array antenna has achieved excellent performances: 4.85% impedance bandwidth, 9.03% gain bandwidth, and 20.6‐dBi gain at 24.15 GHz as a balanced antenna and 6.05% impedance bandwidth, 7.74% gain bandwidth, and 17.8‐dBi gain at 24.15 GHz as an unbalanced antenna. The dual‐feed microstrip grid array antenna is a suitable antenna candidate for radar and sensor applications.     

Broadband T‐bar fed slot antenna array with stable horizontally polarized omnidirectional radiation

A broadband horizontally polarized omnidirectional antenna array is proposed, which consists of a circular array of four identical broadband T‐bar fed cavity‐backed slot antenna elements and a 1‐to‐4 power divider. The proposed omnidirectional antenna array has a compact diameter of only 0.44λ₀, a broad bandwidth of 75.9% (450‐1000 MHz) and a favorable omnidirectional radiation pattern in the azimuth plane with a gain variation below 3 dB in the operating band. Moreover, the cavity‐backed structure makes the proposed antenna array hardly affected by metal environment and the all metal construction allows for high‐power applications, and the reserved cable channel behind the cavities of the antenna elements ensures the extensionality and stability of the proposed array when longitudinal array expansion is needed. Design procedures of the proposed antenna array have been described in detail, simulations and measurements of the proposed antenna array have also been carried out to validate its performance in this article.     

A novel suspended stripline‐fed printed square slot array antenna with high‐gain

A novel suspended stripline‐fed square slot array antenna with high gain is presented. Its basic structure is a suspended stripline comprising of three layers. On the top layer, 4 × 4 square slots are etched and act as radiation elements. The middle layer consists of a suspended stripline power divider, and the bottom layer is a metal ground. After optimization by a parallel Genetic Algorithm (GA) on a cluster system, a prototype antenna is fabricated and tested. The measured results agree well with the simulated data, and show a high gain of 18.7 dBi and an impedance bandwidth of 5.7% for S11<‐10 dB are obtained. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J RF and Microwave CAE, 2009.     

Phase‐only synthesis of planar arrays using autocorrelation matching method

Autocorrelation matching method is proposed for phase‐only synthesis of power pattern of planar antenna arrays. This method is based on equating the autocorrelation coefficients of a planar array having a specified amplitude of excitations to those of a conventionally designed planar array. The effectiveness of the proposed method is verified by synthesis of pencil‐beam and flat‐top patterns.     

Planar antenna beam deflection using low‐loss metamaterial for future 5G applications

A method to tilt the beam of a planar antenna in the E‐plane is demonstrated by implementing a metamaterial (MM) structure onto the antenna substrate at the fifth‐generation (5G) band of 3.5 GHz. The beam tilting is achieved due to the phase change that occurs when the electromagnetic (EM) wave traverses through two media with different refractive indices. A new adjacent square‐shaped resonator (ASSR) structure is proposed to achieve the beam tilting in a dipole antenna. This structure provides a very low loss of ?0.2 dB at 3.17 GHz. The simulation and measurement results illustrate that the radiation beam of the dipole antenna is tilted by +25° and ?24° depending on the position of the ASSR array onto the dipole antenna substrate. In addition, no degradation in the gain is observed as in the conventional beam‐tilting methods; in fact, gain enhancement values of 3 dB (positive deflection) and 2.7 dB (negative deflection) are obtained compared with that of a dipole antenna with no ASSR array. The reflection coefficient of the dipole antenna with ASSR array has a good agreement with that of the dipole antenna with no ASSR array. The measured results agree well with the simulated ones.     

A novel high degree of freedom sparse array with displaced multistage cascade subarrays

The coprime array is a recently developed sparse array that is widely used in direction-of-arrival (DOA) estimation. The degree of freedom (DOF) for existing coprime arrays relies on the virtual array model, which is limited to the array structure. Furthermore, the continuous virtual array aperture is restricted. This paper aims to propose a novel high DOF sparse array with displaced multistage cascade subarrays to further increase the length of the continuous virtual array and improve the DOF. Through cascading and separating the same sparse arrays, the continuous virtual array aperture is improved and the accuracy of the direction-of-arrival estimation is increased. It is proved that the range of the displaced distance for the maximized continuous virtual array can be obtained. The comparison between the array configuration presented in this paper and the existing common arrays are analyzed. The simulation experiments show that, compared with the uniform array, the coprime array, the nested array, and the coprime array with displaced subarrays (CADiS), the sparse array configuration proposed in this paper can significantly increase the aperture of the continuous virtual array, greatly improve the array DOF and the DOA estimation accuracy, and effectively estimate the DOA of multiple sources in underdetermined conditions.     

基于模式空间算法的声源二维DOA估计

针对传统高分辨率谱估计法估计远场声源波达方向（direction of arrival, DOA）时计算量大、对相干信号估计失准的问题,本文提出一种改进的基于圆形麦克风阵列和四阶累积量的声源二维DOA估计算法。该算法结合了圆阵定位无死角的优势和矩阵虚拟扩展获得更多声源定位信息的长处。首先利用模式空间变换将均匀圆形阵列（UCA）虚拟化成2K+1个均匀线性阵列（ULA）,并应用空间平滑技术将虚拟线性阵列划分成L个子阵;接着利用四阶累积构造方法提取有效阵元信息并去掉冗余数据,通过重构矩阵得到新的接收数据;最后通过Music-like算法搜索谱峰获得声源信号的方位角和俯仰角。仿真结果表明,在信噪比较低时,相比传统的高分辨谱估计算法,本文算法可实现对远场相干信号的高精度估计;同时本文算法也具有更低的均方根误差性能,且能有效减少运行时间。     

Bees algorithm for design of dual‐beam linear antenna arrays with digital attenuators and digital phase shifters

This article describes a method of designing a reconfigurable dual‐beam linear antenna array using bees algorithm (BA). The BA is an optimization algorithm inspired by the behavior of the honey bees to find the optimal way of harvesting food resources around the hive. The proposed method is very simple and can be used directly in practice to synthesize multiple beam antenna arrays with digital attenuators and digital phase shifters. A good agreement between the desired pattern and the synthesized pattern using BA is obtained. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J RF and Microwave CAE, 2008.     

Pattern synthesis for opportunistic array radar using least square fitness estimation‐genetic algorithm method

Pattern synthesis in three‐dimensional (3D) opportunistic array radar becomes complex when a multitude of antennas are considered to be randomly distributed in a 3D space. To obtain an optimal pattern, several freedoms must be constrained. A new pattern synthesis approach based on the improved genetic algorithm (GA) using the least square fitness estimation (LSFE) method is proposed. Parameters optimized by this method include antenna locations, stimulus states, and phase weights. The new algorithm demonstrates that the fitness variation tendency of GA can be effectively predicted after several “eras” by the LSFE method. It is shown that by comparing the variation of LSFE curve slope, the GA operator can be adaptively modified to avoid premature convergence of the algorithm. The validity of the algorithm is verified using computer implementation. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J RF and Microwave CAE, 2011.