Towards the design of a low-cost wideband demonstrator tile for the SKA

An 8 × 7 × 2 (112 element) dual-polarized end-fire tapered-slot phased array has been designed, fabricated and tested. We demonstrate a step towards cost effectiveness without sacrificing much of array performance. The measured mutual coupling coefficients and the scan blindness predicted by numerical infinite array analysis are presented. Since the antenna is entirely made out of solid aluminium, no plated-through vias are required to eliminate in-band impedance anomalies in contrast to printed bilateral Tapered Slot Antennas (TSAs). The array has been designed to operate from 0.5 to 1.5 GHz. Despite that the electrical size of the prototype array is only 5λ × 5λ (at 1.5 GHz), the location of the impedance anomalies are predicted well.