Synthesis of planar arrays with arbitrary geometry generating arbitrary footprint patterns

An antenna synthesis technique for the design of planar antenna arrays of arbitrary geometry that radiate footprint patterns with specified contours is presented. It involves two steps. The first consists of obtaining a continuous circular aperture distribution that approximately affords the desired footprint pattern by truncating the corresponding Fourier series. In the second step this distribution is sampled at the array points and the array element excitations are then optimized by simulated annealing to improve the performance. The new technique is designed for synthesis of arrays confined to a limited area on the body of a satellite.