Printed antenna arrays: examples of commercial applications

The flexibility of printed technology offers the possibility of innovative radiating structures well suited to various system requirements. Different systems often need specific radiation patterns such as shaped, directive mono or multibeam with prescribed relative level and positions of lobes, or on the contrary omnidirectional radiation in azimuth; both a large bandwidth and directive patterns are more common requirements for communication systems. Research in the University of Rennes I Laboratory has focused on the corner fed square patch and the array design of such elements. Both planar and cylindrical structures have been investigated and some results are reported here. The properties of the corner fed patch are first given and four examples of arrays and applications are presented: dual beam Doppler radar for accurate measurements of speed and shaped beam for radio distribution (Bognais, 1986) (with sector and cosecant square patterns), omnidirectional cylindrical array for search and rescue maritime systems, and large bandwidth planar directive array