Maximally flat and quasi-smooth sector beams

Methods for the synthesis of sector beams are presented and illustrated with examples. First a perfectly smooth and square beam, the equivalent of the maximally flat transfer function of network theory, is discussed and synthesized. It is then shown that realization of such beams by means of relatively short arrays is feasible when a certain amount of oscillation is permitted. The resulting beam approximates the maximally flat one in an almost equal ripple fashion, the amplitude of the ripple depending on the length of the array and the desired slope of the main beam.