Sparse focused array antenna based on subarrays

Abstract

A focused array antenna (FAA) focuses its radiation power in a small spot in its Fresnel Zone. Typically an FAA is fed by a multi-level power divider. However, the bulky feed network leads to a large insertion loss and increase of complexity especially for large FAAs. A simple method to decrease the complexity of the feeding network is presented in this paper. The proposed FAA is composed of several subarrays and is fed on the subarray level. A 2 × 8 FAA working at 10 GHz is explored, the simplified FAA has similar performance but much simpler feeding network compared to a conventional one.