An active conformal array antenna with very small thickness

A conformal antenna, which is regarded as promising airborne antenna in the future, has been experimentally manufactured and tested with regard to its radiation characteristics. On the realization of the antenna, down-sizing of transmit/receive modules, thinning of RF feed networks and development of the radiation pattern synthesis method which is applicable to whatever shape of the array antennas are performed. The antenna array aperture has a doubly-curved surface of the curvature radius of 0.6 meter on the left side and 0.9 meter on the right side in the elevation plane and 5 meter in the azimuth plane. The operating frequency is in the X-band and digital beam forming (DBF) technique is adopted for the elevation plane beam forming in the receive mode. The measured radiation patterns showed a good agreement with the calculated ones.