Analysis of Co-planar phased array coupling using finite element domain decomposition

This paper proposes a finite element domain decomposition (FEDD) numerical algorithm to investigate coupling between co-planar arrays. The proposed FEDD has been very successful in analyzing large phased arrays by exploiting repetitions in the structure. That ability can lead to low computational costs even for array co-site problems since repetition can be exploited in the array elements as well as the mounting structure itself. Furthermore, FEDD provides a full-wave solution versatile enough to handle general geometries and materials. To illustrate FEDD's merit, this paper presents a comparison of simulated and measured coupling results for co-planar phased arrays including lossy dielectric material.