A Reconfigurable Cosecant-Squared/ Pencil Beam Antenna Array for Radar Systems

Abstract

This paper proposes a novel methodology to synthesize a reconfigurable cosecant-squared /pencil beam antenna array for radar systems. The reconfigurability is achieved based on pseudo inverse synthesis. The antenna array can transform its radiation pattern from cosecant-squared to pencil beam and vice versa by changing solely the phases of only half of the array antenna elements. To validate the methodology, a 14-element antenna array is designed to form either a cosecant-squared or pencil beam radiation pattern utilizing the same feeding network. By changing the feeding phases of only 7 antenna elements, full reconfigurability is achieved. This efficient and simple remodelling technique makes the proposed methodology a good candidate to build a reconfigurable antenna array for radar systems.