On Coupled Structural-Electromagnetic Modeling and Analysis of Rectangle Active Phased Array Antennas

The analysis of electromagnetic performances of active phased array antennas with distorted plane errors is important to the engineering development of high-performance antennas. An coupled model is developed, which describes the effect on the performances of the errors caused by the bent and bowl shape distortion in the plane element positions. The application of the model to a plane array antenna demonstrates the degradation of the sidelobe level and gain of the antenna with different distortion grades. The satisfactory analysis results provide a theoretical guidance for the engineer to determine the structural tolerance.