A large-aperture broadband wide-angle scanning system based on overlapped subarrays

Abstract

A large-aperture low-sidelobe broadband wide-angle scanning system based on completely overlapped subarrays has been presented. The subarray ports use 40-dB Taylor distribution and elements use uniform excitation. A large-aperture array having more than 16 subarrays have an exactly low-sidelobe Taylor pattern. Within a certain range, the bandwidth has linear correlation with subarray size. A smaller spacing than half wavelength can broaden bandwidth in wide-angle scan. Some theoretical instantaneous bandwidths are given. For the array of 512 elements with separation 0.46λ0 having 64 subarrays, when scan angle reaches 60°, the array has an instantaneous bandwidth 30% at 40-dB sidelobe.