Half-power beamwidth of a self-adapting conformal 1 × 4 microstrip array

A new four element self-adapting conformal microstrip antenna array with an embedded sensor system and voltage controlled phase shifters is introduced. The sensor systems consists of a flexible resistive sensor used to measure the shape of the conformal surface and circuitry for measuring the resistance of the sensor. The voltage controlled phase shifters are controlled by the sensing circuitry and are used to introduce a specific phase compensation that dynamically preserves the radiation pattern of the array as the shape of the antenna changes. Specifically, in this work, the autonomous recovery of the half-power beamwidth (HPBW) of the four element array is investigated.