A novel method for computing element patterns in large/complex periodic circular/cylindrical arrays

As known, element patterns of large planar arrays can be calculated from an infinite array approximation using a Floquet unit cell approach. For large conformal arrays, however, unit cell methods can't be used, and element patterns must be calculated numerically by solving the full boundary value problem, leading to a prohibitively large number of unknowns. In this work we describe a novel method for computing element patterns in large and complex periodic arrays with rotational symmetry. The method is based on phase sequence excitation of the array elements in a radial unit cell, and therefore it is very efficient and reduces the memory requirements. It can be easily implemented using parallel processing, thus it can be interpreted as a domain decomposition method in phase-space.