Differential subarray beam steering for a phased array radar

One of the tasks of a multifunction phased array radar is surveillance, and the time taken to carry this out can be reduced by using multiple simultaneous receive beams. A new method ("differential subarray beam steering"), however, allows much larger offsets from the elemental steering direction, with offsets of several beamwidths possible. Not only has the method been shown to work with a simulation of a simple rectangular array, but it has also proved successful in simulations of a planar array, where the subarrays are irregularly shaped. This paper shows that, using this method, better shaped beams, covering a wider angle, can be obtained than using previous methods.