Synthesis of Conical Beam Array Antenna With Concentric Loop Configuration Using Element-Level Pattern Diversity Technique

The synthesis of conical beam array antenna with concentric loop configuration using element-level pattern diversity (ELPD) technique is presented. The synthesis of the conical beam is realized by using the superposition of different conical beams radiated from each circular element that are independently controlled through the weightings. The employment of the ELPD technique results in many advantages such as ripple free, the flexibility in the synthesis, small number of the elements, and relatively simple feed network. The procedures of the synthesis and the numerical results are given. The practical prototype of a three-element array was designed by using full-wave solver and was tested. The 6% impedance bandwidth at a center frequency of 10 GHz with |S₁₁| <; -10 dB and stable radiation patterns are achieved. The measured maximum gain at the beam-pointing angle of 18° is 11.9 dBi. Good agreement can be observed from the simulated results and the measured ones.