Minimum Q of the element in an infinite phased array

A general method has been presented for evaluating the Q of the element in an infinite array environment. In essence the method consists of transforming the active array fields to a unit cell representation in terms of Floquet modes where it is easy to calculate the reactive time-average stored energy and radiated power. Although the method was demonstrated on a simple canonical 2D array, it gives first order min Q-values possible as a function of array geometry and scan. It demonstrated that for small element spacings, the min Q is lower or comparable to the single element Q in free space.