Lowering the Sidelobe Level of a Two-Way Array Factor for an Array With Uniform Transmit and Uniform Receive Arrays

A two-way array factor is the product of the transmit array factor and the receive array factor of a radar. Lowering the sidelobe level (SLL) of the two-way pattern traditionally requires amplitude tapering the transmit and receive apertures. This communication demonstrates the two-way pattern sidelobe reduction using only uniform transmit and receive apertures. If both array factors are uniform, then the expected peak two-way SLL is a little less than -27 dB. This level can be reduced without amplitude tapering if the receive array is made smaller by turning off edge elements. This communication demonstrates this idea for uniform linear and planar arrays. An additional 6.7 dB reduction is possible for the two-way maximum SLL.