Synthesis of monopulse time-modulated planar arrays with controlled sideband radiation

The synthesis of time-modulated planar arrays for the design of monopulse antennas is addressed. The sum beam is generated through an optimal set of static excitations and the difference beam is yielded by aggregating the array elements into sub-arrays suitably modulated in time by means of a set of radio-frequency (RF) switches. Towards this aim, an analytically based iterative deterministic approach is proposed for the joint definition of the sub-array configuration and the pulse sequence controlling the RF switches to reproduce an optimal difference pattern at the working frequency, whereas minimising the power losses in the harmonic radiation caused by the on-off switch commutations. A set of representative numerical results is reported and discussed to illustrate the effectiveness and the numerical efficiency of the proposed approach.