Performances of conformal and planar arrays

Static and dynamic deformations can have a severe impact on the performance of conformal antennas on aircrafts and other vehicles. Therefore it is essential to study the different deformation and vibration mechanisms and their influence on the antenna's radiation pattern. This presentation gives an overview of different approaches concerning electromagnetic modelling of array antennas and investigations on antenna deformations presented in the scope of TG20

Evaluation and compensation of mutual coupling and other non-idealities in small antenna arrays

Smart antenna technology is a challenging area in the development of wireless communications. Using smart antennas the quality of a radio link can be improved by many ways. Smart antennas are active antenna arrays or groups with changeable complex-valued weights at inputs and outputs. Good electrical matching of the array and the similarity and ideality of element patterns is usually expected. This dissertation focuses on the problems in the smart antenna arrays caused mainly by mutual coupling. Mutual coupling causes reflected power in the feeding system, input/output signal correlation and corruption of the element patterns. The arrays used in this thesis are small microstrip arrays. The used frequency is about 5.3 GHz. For several arrays the element patterns and scattering matrices are measured and used in calculations and measurements. Also simulated patterns and scattering matrices are used. Due to mutual coupling the element patterns in an array are usually corrupted and therefore pattern correction should be used in smart antennas to improve the use of adaptive algorithms. In linear pattern correction the element patterns are reshaped using all antenna elements in the array. It is a computational method using a correction matrix between true and idealized inputs/outputs of array branches. For this pattern correction two basically different methods are used. The least squares error method can be used to find the correction matrix if the actual element patterns and the wanted element patterns are known, whereas in the scattering matrix method the correction matrix is defined only with the scattering matrix. These methods are compared in this thesis and the least squares error method is found to result in clearly better array patterns. The disadvantage of the scattering matrix method is that it does not compensate ground plate diffraction. However, the scattering matrix is easier to obtain than the element patterns and its use can give better understanding of the coupling mechanisms and therefore help the antenna design. Thus its use in pattern correction is examined more accurately. An extension of the least squares pattern correction method is done by correcting the array to a virtual array with different element spacing. The results show, that the element spacing in the virtual array should not differ significantly from the spacing in the real array. In addition to the pattern correction with a correction matrix the use of the real patterns for beamforming is examined. In a modified least squares method for beamforming the weighting (cost function) is used. The beamforming with and without robust weighting is compared on the relative scale and the use of weighting give better results. When antenna elements in an array are placed closer to each other, mutual coupling increases. At the same time the correlation between received signals increases. However, the signal correlation is usually caused by the signal propagation, and the effect of mutual coupling is minor. But, when signals arrive from many different directions, the pattern correlation caused by mutual coupling gives a realistic estimate of the signal correlation. The pattern correlation is a pure array characteristic and can be found easily. In this thesis the connection between pattern correlation and mutual coupling is examined. Equations are derived for this connection using scattering parameters or reflected power. These equations allow estimate mutual coupling from pattern correlation and vice versa, which is important for antenna array development. A more detailed formulation of the connection is done for lossless two-element arrays. In practice, when there are losses in the array, mutual coupling is not necessarily usable in estimation of pattern correlation.reviewe

Mutual Coupling in Phased Arrays: A Review

The mutual coupling between antenna elements affects the antenna parameters like terminal impedances, reflection coefficients and hence the antenna array performance in terms of radiation characteristics, output signal-to-interference noise ratio (SINR), and radar cross section (RCS). This coupling effect is also known to directly or indirectly influence the steady state and transient response, the resolution capability, interference rejection, and direction-of-arrival (DOA) estimation competence of the array. Researchers have proposed several techniques and designs for optimal performance of phased array in a given signal environment, counteracting the coupling effect. This paper presents a comprehensive review of the methods that model and mitigate the mutual coupling effect for different types of arrays. The parameters that get affected due to the presence of coupling thereby degrading the array performance are discussed. The techniques for optimization of the antenna characteristics in the presence of coupling are also included

Principal component analysis and perturbation theory–based robust damage detection of multifunctional aircraft structure

A fundamental problem in structural damage detection is to define an efficient feature to calculate a damage index. Furthermore, due to perturbations from various sources, we also need to define a rigorous threshold whose overtaking indicates the presence of damages. In this article, we develop a robust damage detection methodology based on principal component analysis. We first present an original damage index based on projection of the separation matrix, and then, we drive a novel adaptive threshold that does not rely on statistical assumptions. This threshold is analytic, and it is based on matrix perturbation theory. The efficiency of the method is illustrated using simulations of a composite smart structure and experimental results performed on a conformal load-bearing antenna structure laboratory test

Mutual coupling reduction and pattern error correction in a 5g beamforming linear array using CSRR

A four-element printed antenna array operating at 25-GHz frequency with complementary split ring resonator (CSRR) has been proposed for beamforming applications. The CSRR elements have been used to suppress the mutual coupling in the proposed array. The existence of the CSRR configuration in antenna array controls the unnecessary surface current flow between the array elements, and thus the mutual coupling between array elements has been significantly reduced up to -55 dB. The effect of mutual coupling on the array radiation patterns has been studied in the presence and absence of CSRRs. The effectiveness of the CSRR has been studied by steering the main beam as well as the nulls in different angles. By implementing the CSRR elements in array antenna, the distorted array patterns have been recovered and are presented. The proposed antenna array with the CSRR has the advantage of easy and low-cost fabrication and it offers excellent coupling suppression without changing the antenna profile. The commercially available simulation tools such as MATLAB and Ansys HFSS have been used for array weights calculation and antenna design respectively. Finally, the fabricated prototype has been experimentally verified, and it shows that the analytical and computed results agree well with the measured results

Mutual coupling reduction and pattern error correction in a 5G beamforming linear array using CSRR

A four-element printed antenna array operating at 25 GHz frequency with complementary split ring resonator. (CSRR) has been proposed for beamforming applications. The CSRR elements has been used to suppress the mutual coupling in the proposed array. The existence of the CSRR configuration in antenna array, controls the unnecessary surface current flow between the array elements, thus the mutual coupling between array elements has been significantly reduced up to -55 dB. The effect of mutual coupling on the array radiation patterns has been studied in the presence and absence of CSRRs. The effectiveness of CSRR has been studied by steering the main beam as well as the nulls in different angles. By implementing the CSRR elements in array antenna, the distorted array patterns have been recovered and are presented. The proposed antenna array with the CSRR has the advantage of easy and low-cost fabrication and it offers excellent coupling suppression without changing the antenna profile. The commercially available simulation tools such as Matlab and Ansys HFSS have been used for array weights calculation and antenna design respectively. Finally, the fabricated prototype has been experimentally verified, and it shows that the analytical and computed results agree well with the measured results