A multielement high power monopulse feed with low sidelobe and high aperture efficiency

A multielement high power monopulse feed was investigated for excitation of a phased array. This feed has the advantages of high antenna efficiency, effective independent sidelobe control for the sum and difference patterns, and high power handling capability. A 32-element device has been designed which yields theoretical sidelobe levels less than -31 dB for both the sum and difference patterns over the 2800 to 3200 MHz frequency band. The aperture efficiency is 69.5 percent which includes 0.1 dB spillover loss and 1.40 dB tapering loss. The difference slope efficiency defined as the actual slope gain over the maximum possible value is 50 percent at midband. An experimental feed was constructed to verify the predicted performance characteristics. Measured data on both the radiation patterns and the antenna gain agreed very Well with the analytical results. The measured sidelobe level is below -30 dB for all sum and difference beams over the 2800 to 3200 MHz. In addition, this feed can be designed for low power intensity at the feed aperture so that very high power operation can be attained.