A Novel Two-Way Pattern Synthesis Method With the Uniform and Thinned Arrays

In this letter, a novel two-way product pattern synthesis method utilizing a uniform transmit array and a thinned receive array is proposed. Specifically, the thinned receive array is an extended coprime array (ECA). Based on the ECA's characteristics, the ECA's array factor is decomposed into the product of the slow-varying array factor and the fast-varying array factor. Subsequently, the positions of nulls and the first sidelobe of the ECA are derived, respectively. It reveals that the fast-varying array factor plays a dominant role in the positions of nulls and the first sidelobe. The ECA architecture is optimized for element number and element spacing using the combinatorial traversal algorithm. It enables the alignment of nulls and the first sidelobe between the uniform array and the ECA. Compared to the traditional uniform transmit–receive method with the same number of elements, a two-way product pattern with a lower peak sidelobe level, a larger aperture, a narrower beamwidth, and a higher resolution can be achieved by the proposed method. The efficiency of the proposed method has been validated by typical simulation results.