Deterministic synthesis of non-uniformly spaced isophoric linear antenna arrays

A deterministic approach to the synthesis of linear aperiodic antenna arrays with uniform excitation is presented and thoroughly discussed in this paper. The proposed technique, based on the auxiliary array factor concept, is aimed at the deterministic determination of the optimal array element density useful to mimic a desired power pattern. In particular, the developed antenna placement method does not require any optimization procedure, resulting in a dramatic reduction of the antenna design times. Antenna mutual coupling is not accounted in the developed methodology and, hence, in order to assess the sensitivity of the design procedure to such non-ideality, a dedicated numerical investigation has been carried out by using a rigorous full-wave electromagnetic field prediction technique. The obtained results prove the effectiveness and the versatility of the proposed array synthesis approach even in operative scenarios where a significant deviation from desired antenna operation is observed.