Numerical vibration analysis of a SAR antenna

Advanced military aircrafts and modern Medium/High Altitude Long Endurance aircraft or unmanned aerial vehicles will be equipped with structurally integrated array antennas for radar applications. The inertial forces and the aerodynamic loads will cause deformations and vibrations of the total antenna. The influence of deformations and vibrations will be most significant on array antennas, which are large in terms of wavelength (high gain antennas). An example of such an antenna is an array antenna for side-looking Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) mounted on the aircraft. ASELSAN SAR applications require highly directional antennas with a narrow beam and low side-lobe levels. In order to design a light and minimally vibrating SAR antenna, modal design is applied to virtual model of the preliminary design. Then, the physical model development tests and integration verification tests will be applied on the later design steps.