Two-Way Array Factor Supported by Thinning Strategy for An Improved Radar Performance

The presence of side-lobes which are adjacent to main-lobe are serious concern in radar systems. The amplitude distributions across the array aperture improves the side-lobe performance at the cost of directivity and hence aperture efficiency. The current two-way array pattern optimization techniques reveals that if the receive pattern nulls are placed along transmit pattern side-lobe peaks and by using two weight amplitude distribution, side-lobe levels (SLL) can be suppressed up to −50dB. In this work, these techniques are further investigated using three weight amplitude excitation to achieve the best design of a radar array resulting in SLL less than −57dB. These solutions has been validated by parametric optimization and supported by two case studies.