The Design, Fabrication and Test of Feeds, Radiating Elements and Linear Subarrays for a Small Prototype Planar Array Antenna
Abstract
A few years ago, a team of people at Rome Laboratory (now part of Air Force Research Laboratory) designed, fabricated and tested feeds, radiating elements and linear subarrays for a small prototype planar array antenna of the sort envisioned for someday growing into a notional full-sized antenna for a notional radar system to fit within a notional unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). The author of this document was a member of that team. We started small, with several limiting qualifications imposed for simplicity's sake. The prototype array that we intended to design was considerably smaller and simpler than the larger, more complex model of a kind that might form part of a radar system inside a UAV someday. The prototype array was planar, linearly polarized, had a rectangular aperture, operated at X-band (roughly 10 Ghz) with a very narrow (50 Mhz) 3 dB bandwidth, had a fixed beam (no electronic beamsteering capability), was receive-only (not capable of handling high power) and possessed a microstrip corporate/series feed structure with rectangular microstrip patch radiating elements having inset feed points. Only one design iteration was attempted, so the final results were understandably poor. Though the objectives of this project weren't met, the team members feel that if the work had been continued through another design iteration, better results could have been achieved.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Aug 01, 2000
- Accession Number
- ADA384599
Entities
People
- Michael J. Callahan
Organizations
- Rome Laboratory