Contiguous Phase-Clustering in Multibeam-on-Receive Scanning Arrays

With reference to a planar phased-array architecture characterized by the two layers of control points and a linear plank arrangement, an innovative method for the analytic and optimal, in the least-square sense, synthesis of the subarray phases radiating a set of beam patterns pointing along desired angular directions is presented. While independent amplitude and phase analog excitations-one for each element of the array-are set to afford a desired reference pattern, subarray phase coefficients are synthesized to steer multiple beams digitally generated on receive. The aggregation of the array elements into subarrays and the values of the subarray phases are jointly optimized to minimize the mismatch between the desired and the actual steering directions of the beams as well as to reduce the level of the quantization lobes. Representative results, which also include full-solver simulations to consider realistic antenna models, are reported and discussed to assess the effectiveness and the reliability of the proposed method.