Edge Truncation Effect Suppression of Ultrawideband Phased Arrays for Radar Application

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new method to suppress edge truncation effects in ultrawideband phased arrays, improving performance across a broad frequency range for radar applications.

Contribution

A novel approach combining T-shaped metal strips with resistors and excitation phase optimization to mitigate edge truncation effects in ultrawideband arrays.

Findings

Active standing wave ratio reduced to less than 3.5

Effective suppression across 1.2 to 6 GHz bandwidth

Validated by experimental prototype

Abstract

This letter presents a novel, effective method to suppress the edge truncation effect of ultrawideband tightly coupled dipole linear arrays. To restrain the edge truncation effect within an ultrawideband operating band, a new type of T-shaped metal strip with a resistor is further loaded on the array edges apart from extending the length of the overlapping patches. Besides, the excitation phase of the elements at the array edges is optimized. Full-wave simulation results show that the active standing wave standing ratio of the 2 x 16 tightly coupled dipole linear arrays using the proposed method is significantly optimized to less than 3.5 within a 5:1 [(1.2 to 6) GHz] bandwidth, while scanning up to +/-60{\deg} in the E-plane. The effectiveness of the proposed method is experimentally verified by a 2 x 16 linear array prototype.