Robust Hexagonal Antenna Array with Optimal Diagonal Loading in the Presence of Steering Angle Disparity

This paper presents a uniform hexagonal antenna array (UHAA) and its performance using optimal diagonal loading (ODL) technique in case of steering angle disparity. The performance of proposed UHAA beamformer is contrasted with existing concentric circular antenna arrays (CCAA) first to show the excellence of the UHAA beamformer. Then, optimal UHAA beamformer is contrasted with a delay-and-sum beamformer to observe the performance in the appearance of interference signal. Optimal UHAA beamformer delivers poor performance if the desired signal deviates from the beam steering direction. In case of steering angle disparity, a robust technique called ODL is applied to solve the deterioration issue and to make the system robust. From the simulation result, it is ascertained that proposed UHAA beamformer shows 27.62% better half-power beamwidth than existing CCAA beamformer. UHAA requires less space for physical implementation than CCAA, and it also provides better performance in the appearance of look direction disparity.