EFFICIENT FOOTPRINT PATTERNS OBTAINED BY SPREADING OUT COLLAPSED DISTRIBUTIONS

An antenna pattern synthesis technique is presented that permits the d esign of planar arrays with footprint patterns of a specific boundary and controlled ripple and side-lobe levels. The method involves two st eps. The first consists of working with collapsed distributions in a s equence of crystal planes and determining how to spread these out into a planar distribution with a boundary that is inversely proportional to the flat-top beamwidth. After that, a minimization of a cost functi on that makes use of the simulated annealing technique is performed in order to obtain the element excitations. This cost function is built as the squared difference between the desired and obtained SLL and rip ple levels at different angular positions. The dynamic ratio of the ex citations of the array was also taken into account in the cost functio n. (C) 1997 John Wilty ge Sons, Inc.