A Combined Electronic Position- and Partial Amplitude-Control Synthesis Technique for Sidelobe Reductions in Linear Array Antennas

An electronic-position synthesis technique in conjunction with a partial amplitude-control synthesis technique is employed in small-scale, equally spaced linear arrays to reduce the side and minor lobe levels. The electronic-position synthesis technique is made possible through the use of dual-mode antenna elements, capable of electronically displacing their phase center locations, and thus changing their relative coordinates within the array configuration. This will result in electronically breaking the periodicity of the array, and when combined with the amplitude-tapered side elements, it will facilitate an unprecedented sidelobe reduction that is on par with the conventional amplitude-control only such as Chebyshev. In the proposed method, only the amplitude coefficients of selected side elements need to be tapered using stepped functions. For the proof of concept, three different case studies, consisting of 7-, 9-, and 11-element linear arrays, will be investigated. To further validate the results in practice, the nine-element antenna array is fabricated and tested, whose full-wave simulated and measured results are in good agreement.