Analysis of electrical performances of planar active phased array antennas with distorted array plane

The influence of the distorted plane of the active phased array antenna on the electromagnetic performance is of great significance to the research on and development of the high-performance antennas. On the bent and bowl-shape distortion, the model is established of the relationship between the electromagnetic performance and the position error of the radiated elements. The method is presented of analyzing the far-field pattern of the distorted rectangular active phased array antenna. The analysis results of a planar phased array antenna with different distortions grades prove the validity of the model. Therefore, by the method, the antenna designers may set the reasonable requirement on the structural tolerance in manufacturing antenna.

Worst-case tolerance analysis on array antenna based on chaos-genetic algorithm

This paper studies the effect of amplitude-phase errors on the antenna performance. Via builting on a worst-case error tolerance model, a simple and practical worst error tolerance analysis based on the chaos-genetic algorithm （CGA） is proposed. The proposed method utilizes chaos to optimize initial population for the genetic algorithm （GA） and introduces chaotic disturbance into the genetic mutation, thereby improving the ability of the GA to search for the global optimum. Numerical simulations demonstrate that the accuracy and stability of the worst-case analysis of the proposed approach are superior to the GA. And the proposed algorithm can be used easily for the error tolerant design of antenna arrays.

Array Antenna Pattern Synthesis Based on Selective Levy Flight Culture Wolf Pack Algorithm

Due to the shortcomings such as the premature convergence and the bad local optimal searching capability in traditional intelligence methods for pattern synthesis,a new type of wolf pack algorithm named Levy⁃Cultural Wolf Pack Algorithm(LCWPA)was designed on the basis of the Cultural Wolf Pack Algorithm(CWPA),which obeys the selective Levy flight.Because of the good overall management ability provided by the cultural algorithm in optimization process and the characteristics of excellent population diversity brought by Levy flight,the search efficiency of the new algorithm was greatly improved.When the algorithm was applied in the pattern synthesis of array antenna,the simulation results showed its high performance with multi⁃null and low side⁃lobe restrictions.In addition,the algorithm was superior to the Quantum Particle Swarm Optimization(QPSO),Particle Swarm Optimization(PSO),and Genetic Algorithm(GA)in optimization accuracy and operation speed,and is of very good generalization.

Beam shaping with limited amplitude weight values for satellite active phased array antenna

To gain the tradeoff between lower sidelobe and higher power amplifiers efficiency,a transmitting beam shaping scheme with limited amplitude weight values for satellite active phased array antenna is presented. The scheme is implemented by a dual coding genetic algorithm(GA). Phase and amplitude of array weight vectors for beam shaping are encoded by real coding and finite length binary coding,respectively,which,maintaining accuracy of results,reduces the amplitude dynamic range and improves the efficiency of power amplifiers. The presented algorithm,compared with complex-coded GA,increases the convergence rate due to the search space's decrease. In order to overcome the prematurity and obtain better global optimization or quasi-global optimization,a new dual coding GA based on "species diversity retention" strategy and adaptive crossover and mutation probability are presented.

A Novel 28 GHz Phased Array Antenna for 5G Mobile Communications

A novel phased array antenna consisting of 256 elements is presented and experimentally verified for 5G millimeter-wave wireless communications.The antenna integrated with a wave control circuit can perform real-time beam scanning by reconfiguring the phase of an antenna unit.The unit,designed at 28 GHz using a simple patch structure with one PIN diode,can be electronically controlled to generate 1 bit phase quantization.A prototype of the antenna is fabricated and measured to demonstrate the feasibility of this approach.The measurement results indicate that the antenna achieves high gain and fast beam-steering,with the scan beams within±60°range and the maximum gain up to 21.7 dBi.Furthermore,it is also tested for wireless video transmission.In ZTE Shanghai,the antenna was used for the 5G New Radio(NR)test.The error vector magnitude(EVM)is less than 3%and the adjacent channel leakage ratio(ACLR)less than−35 dBc,which can meet 5G system requirements.Compared with the conventional phased array antenna,the proposed phased array has the advantages of low power consumption,low cost and conformal geometry.Due to these characteristics,the antenna is promising for wide applications in 5G millimeter-wave communication systems.

Particle simulations on propagation and resonance of lower hybrid wave launched by phased array antenna in linear devices

In this work, we performed first-principles electromagnetic-kinetic simulations to study a phased antenna array and its interaction with deuterium plasmas within the lower hybrid range of frequency. We first gave wave accessibility and resonance results, which agree well with theoretical prediction. In addition, we further investigated the antenna power spectrum with different antenna phases in the presence of the plasma and compared it with that in a vacuum,which directly indicates wave coupling and plasma absorption. Furthermore, for the case with zero phasing difference, our simulation results show that, albeit the launch is away from the accessibility region, tunneling effect and mode conversion occurred, which enhanced coupling and absorption. Moreover, consistent interactions between the injected wave and the plasma concerning various antenna phase differences are shown. We presented the inchoate response of the plasma in terms of the launching directions. Our results could be favorable for the engineering design of wave heating experiments with a tunable phased antenna array in linear devices, such as simple magnetic mirrors or tandem mirrors.

Design of Ka-Band Phased Array Antenna with Calibration Function

In this paper,we have proposed a novel structure of Ka-band based phased array antenna with calibration function.In the design of Kaband antenna,the active phased array system is adopted and the antenna would work in the dual polarization separation mode.We have given out the schematic diagram for the proposed Ka-band antenna,where the Kaband antenna is in the form of waveguide slot array antenna,with 96 units in azimuth and 1 unit in distance.Each group of units is driven by a singlechannel Transmitter/Receiver(T/R)component,and the whole array contains 192 T/R components in total.The size of the T/R component is 55mm(length)×50mm(width)×5.8mm(height),3 Sub-micro Sub-Miniature Push-on(SSMP)blind sockets and a 21-core low-frequency socket are designed on the two sides of the T/R component.In order to meet the technical specifications of phased array antenna,the Ka-band transceiver component is designed based on Low Temperatrue Co-fired Ceramic(LTCC)technology to achieve miniaturization and lightweight.In our approach,the feed network includes two parts:transceiver network and calibration network.The transceiver network consists of 241:8 time-delay power dividers,12 two-way power dividers and 2 six-way time-delay power dividers.The power supply required by theKaband antenna unit is provided to each active component by the power module after Ka band wavelet control distribution.Simulation and measurement results are given in the form of standing wave and scanning capability.

Study of Array Antenna Pattern Synthesis Based on Sparse Sensing

Aiming at the problem that a large number of array elements are needed for uniform arrays to meet the requirements of direction map,a sparse array pattern synthesis method is proposed in this paper based on the sparse sensing theory.First,the Orthogonal Matching Pursuit(OMP)algorithm and the Exact Augmented Lagrange Multiplier(EALM)algorithm were improved in the sparse sensing theory to obtain a more efficient Orthogonal Multi⁃Matching Pursuit(OMMP)algorithm and the Semi⁃Exact Augmented Lagrange Multiplier(SEALM)algorithm.Then,the two improved algorithms were applied to linear array and planar array pattern syntheses respectively.Results showed that the improved algorithms could achieve the required pattern with very few elements.Numerical simulations verified the effectiveness and superiority of the two synthetic methods.In addition,compared with the existing sparse array synthesis method,the proposed method was more robust and accurate,and could maintain the advantage of easy implementation.

Design of a High-Gain 2 × 1 Array Antenna for S-Band Applications

Antennas are an indispensable element in wireless networks. For long-distance wireless communication, antenna gains need to be very strong (highly directive) because the signal from the antenna loses a lot of strength as it travels over long distances. This is true in the military with missile, radar, and satellite systems, etc. Antenna arrays are commonly employed to focus electromagnetic waves in a certain direction that cannot be achieved perfectly with a single-element antenna. The goal of this study is to design a rectangular microstrip high-gain 2 × 1 array antenna using ADS Momentum. This microstrip patch array design makes use of the RT-DUROID 5880 as a substrate with a dielectric constant of 2.2, substrate height of 1.588 mm, and tangent loss of 0.001. To achieve efficient gain and return loss characteristics for the proposed array antenna, RT-Duroid is a good choice of dielectric material. The designed array antenna is made up of two rectangular patches, which have a resonance frequency of 3.3 GHz. These rectangular patches are excited by microstrip feed lines with 13 mm lengths and 4.8 mm widths. The impedance of the patches is perfectly matched by these transmission lines, which helps to get better antenna characteristics. At a resonance frequency of 3.3 GHz, the suggested antenna array has a directivity of 10.50 dB and a maximum gain of 9.90 dB in the S-band. The S parameters, 3D radiation pattern, directivity, gain, and efficiency of the constructed array antenna are all available in ADS Momentum.

Wideband Reconfigurable Millimeter-Wave Linear Array Antenna Using Liquid Crystal for 5G Networks

The advanced design of a 10 × 1 linear antenna array system with the capa-bility of frequency tunability using GT3-23001 liquid crystal (LC) is pro-posed. The design for this reconfigurable wideband antenna array for 5G ap-plications at Ka-band millimeter-wave (mmw) consists of a double layer of stacked patch antenna with aperture coupled feeding. The bias voltage over LC varies from 0 V to 10.6 V to achieve a frequency tunability of 1.18 GHz. The array operates from 25.3 GHz to 33.8 GHz with a peak gain of 19.2 dB and a beamwidth of 5.2° at 30 GHz. The proposed reconfigurable antenna ar-ray represents a real and efficient solution for the recent and future mmw 5G networks. The proposed antenna is suitable for 5G base stations in stadiums, malls and convention centers. It is proper for satellite communications and radars at mmw.

Design of Three-Element Circular Polarization Antenna Array Based on Sequentially Rotated Feed Technique

Circularly polarized antennas are used in communications between ground stations and satellites to achieve reliable communication links.The right-hand circular polarization and left-hand circular polarization are two types of circular polarization in satellite communications,they are used to support uplink and downlink communications.Circularly polarized antennas are used also in radar system for target detection,tracking and identification.The“three-element circularly polarized microstrip array antenna”is designed to produce left-handed circular polarization,make its size compact,make its bandwidth wider than 3.7-4.2GHz and achieve high gain.Circular polarization element antenna and three-element circularly polarized microstrip array antenna are designed and simulated in software HFSS,and the circular polarization element antenna is manufactured and tested in anechoic chamber.For circular polarization element antenna and three-element circularly polarized microstrip array antenna,the study analyzed these parameters:AR,S(1,1),VSWR,bandwidth,normalized impedance,gain and realized gain,radiation efficiency.After optimized,the study get the required results of them.

Beidou receiver based on anti-jamming antenna arrays with self-calibration for precise relative positioning

Unmanned aerial vehicles(UAVs)may be subjected to unintentional radio frequency interference(RFI)or hostile jamming attack which will lead to fail to track global navigation satellite system(GNSS)signals.Therefore,the simultaneous realization of anti-jamming and high-precision carrier phase difference positioning becomes a dilemmatic problem.In this paper,a distortionless phase digital beamforming(DBF)algorithm with self-calibration antenna arrays is proposed,which enables to obtain distortionless carrier phase while suppressing jamming.Additionally,architecture of high precision Beidou receiver based on anti-jamming antenna arrays is proposed.Finally,the performance of the algorithm is evaluated,including antenna calibration accuracy,carrier phase distortionless accuracy,and carrier phase measurement accuracy without jamming.Meanwhile,the maximal jamming to signal ratio(JSR)and real time kinematic(RTK)positioning accuracy under wideband jamming are also investigated.The experimental results based on the real-life Beidou signals show that the proposed method has an excellent performance for precise relative positioning under jamming when compared with other anti-jamming methods.

OAM mode purity improvement based on antenna array

Orbital Angular Momentum(OAM)waves are characterized by helical wave fronts and orthogonality between different modes.Therefore,OAM waves have huge potential in improving wireless communications'channel capacity and radar imaging's resolution.Consequently,the generation and application of OAM waves have attracted a lot of attention.And many methods are proposed to generate OAM waves.Although antenna array is the most popular method of generating OAM waves,OAM waves generated by antenna array have redundant modes.However,all advantages of OAM waves are closely related to infinite OAM modes.Thus,to better apply OAM waves to wireless communications and radar,it is very important to reduce unnecessary OAM modes and improve the OAM mode purity.In order to improve the OAM mode purity,two combined antenna arrays composed of X direction antenna and Y direction antenna array are proposed in this paper.The X direction antenna array and the Y direction antenna array are supplied by the excitations with the same amplitude and fixed phase shift.The overall phase shift of the X direction antenna array isπ/2 more or less than that of the Y direction antenna array.The results of formulas and antenna models in CST show that the combined antenna arrays can generate OAM waves with less redundant modes in x component,y component and z component.Besides,the z component carries pure OAM modes.

Sparse antenna array design methodologies:A review

Designing a sparse array with reduced transmit/receive modules(TRMs)is vital for some applications where the antenna system’s size,weight,allowed operating space,and cost are limited.Sparse arrays exhibit distinct architectures,roughly classified into three categories:Thinned arrays,nonuniformly spaced arrays,and clustered arrays.While numerous advanced synthesis methods have been presented for the three types of sparse arrays in recent years,a comprehensive review of the latest development in sparse array synthesis is lacking.This work aims to fill this gap by thoroughly summarizing these techniques.The study includes synthesis examples to facilitate a comparative analysis of different techniques in terms of both accuracy and efficiency.Thus,this review is intended to assist researchers and engineers in related fields,offering a clear understanding of the development and distinctions among sparse array synthesis techniques.

A Combined Antenna Array Deployment with High Positioning Accuracy and Low Angular Measurement Error

In this paper,an antenna array composed of circular array and orthogonal linear array is proposed by using the design of long and short baseline“orthogonal linear array”and the circular array ambiguity resolution design of multi-group baseline clustering.The effectiveness of the antenna array in this paper is verified by sufficient simulation and experiment.After the system deviation correction work,it is found that in the L/S/C/X frequency bands,the ambiguity resolution probability is high,and the phase difference system error between each channel is basically the same.The angle measurement error is less than 0.5°,and the positioning error is less than 2.5 km.Notably,as the center frequency increases,calibration consistency improves,and the calibration frequency points become applicable over a wider frequency range.At a center frequency of 11.5 GHz,the calibration frequency point bandwidth extends to 1200 MHz.This combined antenna array deployment holds significant promise for a wide range of applications in contemporary wireless communication systems.

New Antenna Array Beamforming Techniques Based on Hybrid Convolution/Genetic Algorithm for 5G and Beyond Communications

Side lobe level reduction(SLL)of antenna arrays significantly enhances the signal-to-interference ratio and improves the quality of service(QOS)in recent and future wireless communication systems starting from 5G up to 7G.Furthermore,it improves the array gain and directivity,increasing the detection range and angular resolution of radar systems.This study proposes two highly efficient SLL reduction techniques.These techniques are based on the hybridization between either the single convolution or the double convolution algorithms and the genetic algorithm(GA)to develop the Conv/GA andDConv/GA,respectively.The convolution process determines the element’s excitations while the GA optimizes the element spacing.For M elements linear antenna array(LAA),the convolution of the excitation coefficients vector by itself provides a new vector of excitations of length N=(2M−1).This new vector is divided into three different sets of excitations including the odd excitations,even excitations,and middle excitations of lengths M,M−1,andM,respectively.When the same element spacing as the original LAA is used,it is noticed that the odd and even excitations provide a much lower SLL than that of the LAA but with amuch wider half-power beamwidth(HPBW).While the middle excitations give the same HPBWas the original LAA with a relatively higher SLL.Tomitigate the increased HPBWof the odd and even excitations,the element spacing is optimized using the GA.Thereby,the synthesized arrays have the same HPBW as the original LAA with a two-fold reduction in the SLL.Furthermore,for extreme SLL reduction,the DConv/GA is introduced.In this technique,the same procedure of the aforementioned Conv/GA technique is performed on the resultant even and odd excitation vectors.It provides a relatively wider HPBWthan the original LAA with about quad-fold reduction in the SLL.

A Downward-looking Three-dimensional Imaging Method for Airborne FMCW SAR Based on Array Antennas

With regard to problems in conventional synthetic aperture radar （SAR）, such as imaging distortion, beam limitation and failure in acquiring three-dimensional （3-D） information, a downward-looking 3-D imaging method based on frequency modulated continuous wave （FMCW） and digital beamforming （DBF） technology for airborne SAR is presented in this study. Downward-looking 3-D SAR signal model is established first, followed by introduction of virtual antenna optimization factor and discussion of equivalent-phase-center compensation. Then, compensation method is provided according to reside video phase （RVP） and slope term for FMCW SAR. As multiple receiving antennas are applied to downward-looking 3-D imaging SAR, range cell migration correction （RCMC） turns to be more complex, and corrective measures are proposed. In addition, DBF technology is applied in realizing cross-track resolution. Finally, to validate the proposed method, magnitude of slice, peak sidelobe ratio （PSLR）, integrated sidelobe ratio （ISLR） and two-dimensional （2-D） contour plot of impulse response function （IRF） of point target in three dimensions are demonstrated. Satisfactory performances are shown by simulation results.

Photonic microwave true time delays for phased array antennas using a 49 GHz FSR integrated optical micro-comb source[Invited]

We demonstrate significantly improved performance of a microwave true time delay line based on an integrated optical frequency comb source. The broadband micro-comb(over 100 nm wide) features a record low free spectral range(FSR) of 49 GHz, resulting in an unprecedented record high channel number(81 over the C band)—the highest number of channels for an integrated comb source used for microwave signal processing. We theoretically analyze the performance of a phased array antenna and show that this large channel count results in a high angular resolution and wide beam-steering tunable range. This demonstrates the feasibility of our approach as a competitive solution toward implementing integrated photonic true time delays in radar and communications systems.

A Novel Multi-Modal OAM Vortex Electromagnetic Wave Microstrip Array Antenna

In this paper,we combine the circular polarization technology and orbital angular momentum(OAM)into the array antenna design for the first time,achieve free switch of the different topological charges in the array by using high-speed radio frequency(RF)switch technology.We arrange microstrip patch antenna elements equidistantly along the circumference to form eight elements multi-modal OAM vortex electromagnetic wave microstrip array antenna.It can generate elec-tromagnetic waves with dual characteristics of circular polarization and multi-modal vortex OAM(where OAM mode values are l=0,l=±1,l=±2,l=±3).Through simulation,we find mutual coupling between the radiating elements is small relatively,and increasing the number of array elements can not only improve the beam quality,but also generate electromagnetic waves with a higher order of OAM modes.Antenna model can meet the basic demands of ordinary array antenna,and also confirm the practicality of this circular polarized microstrip antenna array model.

Optical true time-delay for two-dimensional phased array antennas using compact fiber grating prism

A two-dimensional(2D) optical true-time delay(TTD) beam-forming system using a compact fiber grating prism(FGP) for a planar phased array antenna(PAA) is proposed. The optical beam-forming system mainly consists of a TTD unit based on the same compact FGP, one tunable laser for elevation beam steering, and a controlled wavelength converter for azimuth beam steering. A planar PAA using such 2D optical TTD unit has advantages such as compactness, low bandwidth requirement for tunable laser sources, and potential for large-scale system implementations. The proof-of-concept experiment results demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed scheme.