Scalable EM simulation and validations of dual-polarized phased array antennas for MPAR

This work developed a scalable measurement and simulation framework that allows different types of future Multifunctional Phased Array Radar (MPAR) manifolds to be evaluated and improved. The focus is to compare the optimized, formed beam patterns of both planar and cylindrical array antennas. A Finite-Difference Time-Domain (FDTD) solver is developed for rectangular, cylindrical, and non orthogonal coordinate systems to simulate planar array, fully conformal cylindrical array, and faceted-cylindrical array respectively. This electromagnetic (EM) solver is used to generate Active Element Patterns (AEP) for scalable simulations, which are then compared and validated with measurements of active element patterns using near-field scanning and array pattern generation results.