M. V. Indenbom – Ph.D. (Eng.), Senior Research Scientist, Head of Sector of Antenna Department, JSC «All-Russian Scientific and Research Institute of Radiotechnics» (Moscow)

E-mail: mindenbom@mail.ru

N. Yu. Kurochkin – Engineer, JSC «All-Russian Scientific and Research Institute of Radiotechnics» (Moscow)

The ring active antenna arrays with multi-beam radiation pattern having several main lobes, which are oriented in different azimuth directions, have been investigated.

The methods of forming multi-beam radiation pattern having the maximum value of generalized and weighting average equivalent isotropic radiated power (EIRP) have been proposed. The sum of all complex radiation pattern main lobes values with complex weighting factors is used in the definition of the generalized EIRP. The weighting average gain is defined as a sum of all main lobes EIRP with positive weighting factors. The weighting coefficients are assigned by the developer, based on the necessary ratio of the directional pattern lobe maximum values. It has been shown that the maximum EIRP is achieved with a uniform amplitude distribution corresponding to the same output power of active modules. The relationships for calculating the optimal phase distribution have been obtained.

Numerical calculations are performed for a cylindrical antenna array of infinite narrow slots. The slot input feeder includes the fourpole network for carrying out the ideal matching for uniform excitation.

The greatest EIRP is reached at the excitation which is optimal by the criterion of the maximum weighted average EIRP. The criterion of the maximum generalized EIRP allows you to control the ratio values of the EIRP at the maxima.

The optimal solution has been compared with a quasi-optimal solution, in which the ring antenna array has an optimal distribution separately for each of its sectors, which form self main lobe in the direction of the sector center. It has been shown that in the case when the number of lobes of the radiation pattern is more than three the value of EIRP at the quasi-optimal excitation is noticeably smaller than its value at the optimum excitation.

The obtained solutions gave a substantially larger EIRP of active phased-array antenna than in case of distribution optimization by the criterion of the maximum of gain factor. The optimal solution does not require control of the amplitude distribution during scanning and leads to increase in the overall efficiency due to the possibility of using the saturation mode in the output power amplifiers of modules of active phased-array antenna.

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