Wideband low sidelobe printed array antenna

The development of wideband antennas with low sidelobe level (SLL) is vital for many up-to-date special communication and air traffic control applications. As it has been reported earlier, array antennas have advantages in SLL but are inherently narrower band than reflector antennas. Another question, not easy for array antennas (if being compared with reflectors), is usually the cost. Researchers do their best to extend the bandwidth (BW) of low SLL arrays and reduce their cost. The task to achieve a good SLL is especially difficult in the case of small array aperture because amplitude and phase (A&/spl phi/) errors, the mutual coupling, and edge effects are more influential in this case than for large arrays. In this paper cost effective design approaches are considered for an S-band dipole antenna array with relatively small aperture and potential opportunities are investigated to improve SLL and BW. The cost reduction is provided by use of the printed circuit technology for all antenna components (radiators, beamforming networks, phase shifters) and by minimizing the number of components. The improving of SLL and BW is provided by A&/spl phi/ errors minimization, mutual coupling and edge effect suppression.