Integrated filtering in reconfigurable planar phased-array antennas with spurious harmonic suppression

In the present work, the possibility to integrate filtering functionalities in a phased-array antenna at radiating element level is investigated. The filtenna concept has been applied to an X-band phased array of slot-fed patches. An effective strategy for the suppression of spurious harmonics, based on the perturbation of the patch currents of the patch associated to the higher order modes, is described. Furthermore, frequency reconfigurability has been introduced at the antenna level, making the radiating structure capable of covering the entire radar X-band ([8.5-10.5] GHz).