Self tapered array lattice for high efficiency transmit applications

Applications for phased array antennas have become increasingly diverse. This is true for current state of the art radar systems (sense and avoid, imaging, weather, etc) as well as communication antennas. Many of these applications require low sidelobe performance or beam-widths tailored to a specific application. Current methods to implement amplitude taper over the array aperture involve attenuators or unequal power splitting networks. These traditional methods have negative impacts to system performance. In this paper, we present the results of the investigation of two alternate approaches for improving the EIRP and simplicity of tapered array lattices that do not make use of conventional techniques involving dissipative attenuation or unequal power dividers. These techniques are intended to improve the EIRP from a given transmit array size without compromising side-lobe suppression. A conventional approach using power dividers is presented for comparison. It is shown that the EIRP available from a transmit aperture may be increased by more than 6 dB while maintaining low side-lobe levels.