Design of a lightweight broadband element for an airborne phased array

A lightweight broadband phased array element was designed and manufactured using microstrip patch technology for an airborne telemetry antenna application. The electrical requirements of the element included nearly a 10 percent bandwidth, dual orthogonal linear polarization, ±60° azimuth coverage, and low mismatch loss. In addition to the electrical requirements, the lightweight element had to be easy to manufacture and exhibit good mechanical integrity. The final element design demonstrated a 16 dB return loss at 2.2. and 2.4 GHz and a 20 dB return loss at 2.3 GHz. Information about design tradeoffs, fabrication, and measurements is presented