Authors:Johnson J. H. Wang
Source:FERMAT, Articles, 2016-Vol16-Jul_Aug-006
Abstract:This paper demonstrates and characterizes the Traveling-Wave Antenna Array (TWAA) as a Multioctave Planar Phased Arrays (MPPA) capable of efficient wide scan with low cross polarization. Three brassboard TWAA panels having 16×16 elements were fabricated and tested for wide-angle scan up to 60° off broadside over 2-12 GHz using a True-Time Delay (TTD) Beam Steering Network (BSN) in a corporate feed configuration. Fairly good performance was exhibited using conventional far-field antenna range tests in an anechoic chamber. The test data are in fair agreements with computer simulation data generated by The Ohio State University. This study appears to be the first time that an MPPA is demonstrated to be capable of multioctave bandwidth for efficient 60° scan in a fullfledged manner with convincing direct calibrated measurements and consistent with calculated data. The state-of-the-art, and some ambiguities and controversies, in this field of MPPAs are also reviewed with comments and clarifications.
Index Terms:array, phased array, planar array, broadband antenna, traveling wave antenna, traveling wave array, ultrawideband antenna, conformal array.
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Traveling-Wave Antenna Array (TWAA) -a Multioctave Planar Phased Array (MPPA)*