Limits of compensation in a failed antenna array

In large antenna arrays, the possibility of occurrence of faults in some of the radiating elements cannot be precluded at all times. In such situations, the radiation pattern of the array gets distorted, mostly with an increase in sidelobe level and decrease in gain. Although it is not possible to restore the pattern fully by rearranging the excitations of the functioning elements, compensation methods have been reported in the literature for restoring one performance parameter of the array and making a trade‐off on some other parameter. In this article, we have made a study on the tolerance level of this compensation process. One part of the study deals with the thinning in the failed array, that is, to find a limit on the minimum number of functioning elements of the array that can restore the digital beamforming of the failed array. The second part of study deals with finding the maximum number of element failures that can be compensated. The study was carried out by optimizing the amplitude excitations of the failed array. Instead of classical optimization techniques, particle swarm optimization was used for the compensation process. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J RF and Microwave CAE 24:635–645, 2014.     

Design of a broadband dielectric resonator antenna and its application in low sensitivity frequency beam‐scanning array with wide scanning angle and suppressed sidelobes

In this paper, a broadband dielectric resonator antenna (DRA) with a simple H‐slot feeding structure is proposed. The broad bandwidth (~45%) and uni‐directional radiation enable this DRA suitable to work as a radiation element in the construction of a beam‐scanning array with not only low frequency sensitivity which is important for accurate angle estimation of in‐coming targets, but also a wide scanning range. Moreover, stable coupling coefficients are established around all the above three resonances with respect to its corresponding feeding line, ensuring a low sidelobe level (SLL) across the whole operating frequency range. In order to realize such a DRA, a latticed rectangular structure is utilized to generate the lower two resonances, while the upper resonance is generated by its H‐shaped feeding slot. The shape of the latticed dielectric resonator is also modified according to a 3‐D printed fixing structure for an accurate installation. A 20‐element beam‐scanning prototype is demonstrated and manufactured. The range of scanning angle is from ?36° to +13° within the bandwidth of 10 to 16 GHz, corresponding to a frequency sensitivity of only 122.5 MHz/^o. The achieved SLL are smaller than 19 dB for all scanning beams. The above performance indicates that, this array is very suitable for near‐range radar systems requiring an accurate angle estimation.     

一种低副瓣锐截止波束赋形阵列天线设计

采用联合DFP和BFGS变尺度,结合全局寻优算法,通过优化阵列各单元馈电幅度和相位分布,设计了一种满足低副瓣锐截止波束赋形要求的阵列天线.该阵列由26个印刷振子单元天线组成,各单元馈电电路采用带状线环形桥.馈电电路网络采用带状线结构,整个馈电网络和印刷天线采用一体化设计,具有插入损耗小,结构紧凑的特点.实测表明,3dB波束宽度为11°,水平面锐截止为5.83dB/(°),副瓣低于-20dB.天线设计满足指标要求,并已获得应用.     

Adaptive iteration Fourier technique applied for antenna arrays pattern synthesis

Based on the existing method of iterative Fourier transforms, an adaptive iteration Fourier technique (AIFT) is proposed for antenna arrays synthesis. Compared with the initial method, three different aspects exist in AIFT. Firstly, the method could adaptively compute the peak sidelobe threshold(PST) in order to obtain the optimum distribution of element excitations satisfying the objective parameter. Secondly, un-uniform element excitations are employed to meet the requirement of sidelobe reduction. Thirdly, when the antenna arrays were massively truncated, the method could lower the beamwidth of their far field patterns by adaptively modulating the value of array factors that are located in the edge region of mainlobes so that the beam broadening caused by the initial method could be efficiently avoided. Simulation results for different design requirements show the effectiveness and high efficiency of the proposed method.     

单通道副瓣影响分析及抑制方法

为了抑制天线副瓣对单通道目标检测的影响,文中通过比较实测天线方向图和回波方向图的特点,提出了利用搜索目标幅度最大值和方位向滑帧统计波束宽度的方法来抑制副瓣干扰,并通过仿真分析验证了算法的有效性。     

超低副瓣相控阵天线设计中的几个问题

本文论述了超低副瓣相控阵天线的设计方法，它涉及诸多因素，这里主要研究诸如阵列单元互耦，单元与馈电系统之间的传输变换段，阵列激励与位置误差，以及单元通道校准问题。     

近程强杂波限幅处理对旁瓣相消性能的影响

分析了雷达同时受到有源干扰和无源干扰的情况下其抗干扰性能下降的原因。通过数学推导以及仿真实验对各种因素进行分析,结果表明:引起雷达抗干扰性能变差的原因是由于限幅对旁瓣相消性能的影响。     

一种基于抽取LMS的距离旁瓣抑制方法

在噪声雷达中,传统相关处理方法的距离旁瓣受到时宽带宽积的限制,在有限相关处理时间内得到的距离旁瓣较高,会造成微弱目标被强目标、杂波旁瓣淹没的现象。提出一种基于抽取最小均方（Least Mean Square,LMS）滤波的噪声雷达旁瓣抑制方法,将LMS滤波器的系数作为距离压缩结果,从而获取较低的距离旁瓣。对该方法的性能进行了理论分析,并通过数字仿真验证了算法的有效性和理论分析的正确性。     

雷达副瓣对消关键技术分析与验证

副瓣对消技术是雷达抗有源压制式噪声干扰的一项重要措施,可以有效提高干扰环境下雷达最大探测距离。文中通过介绍副瓣对消的工作原理,从辅助天线设计、对消样本选取、主辅通道一致性三个方面分析副瓣对消的关键技术,结合抗干扰试验的常见问题,给出时序对齐、全量程噪声分段采样等解决方法,并分析现有副瓣对消性能指标的局限性,提出新的副瓣对消性能指标,并对指标的合理性进行了验证。     

X 波段加膜片式单脊波导裂缝天线的研究

等效导纳值是波导宽边纵缝天线的关键设计参数。为克服传统波导裂缝天线副瓣偏高、设计效率低下等问题,本文提出了一种单脊波导裂缝天线的改进设计方法,在传统波导裂缝阵列天线设计的基础上,利用等效导纳值对天线等效电路的影响,在裂缝单元下增加金属膜片,通过改变金属膜片的高度,优化裂缝等效导纳值,使得每个裂缝口径场分布更加接近于理论设计值,并在设计过程中使用牛顿迭代法提取导纳进一步缩短设计时间。通过设计实例表明:应用此方法设计单脊波导裂缝天线能够有效抑制副瓣电平,天线方位面副瓣电平可达到-30 dB 以下;在满足主要指标要求的前提下,设计效率显著提升。