Optimal synthesis of reconfigurable conformal arrays with phase only control

Reconfigurable antennas, able to radiate more than one pattern, are often necessary in the modern telecommunication systems. In the case of array antennas, phase-only control of the beam reconfiguration has a significant relevance in the attainment of greater simplicity of the beam forming network. Furthermore, in many applications the geometry of the antenna is dictated by the particular application in question so that a conformal array is required. Previously, a new technique for the synthesis of (non-reconfigurable) conformal arrays, based on the determination of the intersection between two suitably defined sets, has been presented in the three dimensional and fully vectorial case [Bucci et al. 1995]. In this communication a generalization of this technique is presented in order to face the problem of the synthesis of reconfigurable conformal arrays with phase-only control. In particular the presented approach allows to find, in an optimal way, the amplitude of the excitation coefficients common to all beams and the phases of such excitations corresponding to each radiated beam.