Synthesis of Monopulse Antenna Patterns for Elliptical Phased Array Antennas With Different Peak Sidelobes Along the Principal Planes

This paper deals with the synthesis of monopulse antenna patterns, sum and difference ones, for planar phased array antennas with an elliptical aperture boundary featuring unequal ultra-low peak sidelobe levels (PSLLs) for the two principal planes of its far field. The used synthesis method is the iterative Fourier transform (IFT) approach. The elliptical planar phased array antenna involved in this synthesis contains 3656 open-ended waveguide radiating elements arranged in a triangular element grid and has an aperture width and height of 50λ
₀
and 25λ
₀
, respectively, where λ
₀
is the wavelength at X-band center frequency 1.0f
₀
. The simulated monopulse pattern results will be compared with those of a 4680-element rectangular planar phased array antenna having the same width, height, radiator type and triangular grid as the elliptical array antenna. The monopulse patterns of the rectangular array antenna meet the same unequal ultra-low PSLL requirements as those of the elliptical array antenna. It will be shown that the elliptical array antenna with a slightly enlarged aperture containing 4170 elements features on receive comparable or even better far-field performance characteristics as that of the rectangular array antenna. All reported far-field pattern simulations take mutual coupling between the array elements into account.