Design of planar slotted waveguide array antennas

Abstract

In this chapter, we will present Elliott's design procedure for planar standing wave slot arrays including a detailed design example with computed and measured results. For large planar arrays a modification to Elliott's design procedure using an infinite array model is sometimes preferred. Large standing wave arrays can be broken up into sub-arrays with a parallel feed network to improve bandwidth. Important parameters are the total normalised slot conductance of radiating waveguides and the total normalised resistance of feed waveguides. Additional examples of slot array designs will be presented, including a procedure for designing a travelling wave feed to excite radiating waveguides with either standing wave or travelling wave slot arrays. Other design and analysis methods in the literature will also be reviewed. Chapter Contents: 7.1 Introduction 7.2 Elliott's design procedure for planar standing wave arrays 7.2.1 Design algorithm 7.2.2 Example of a 6 × 6 planar array 7.3 Design of large arrays using the infinite array mutual coupling model 7.3.1 Infinite array mutual coupling expression [11,13] 7.4 Choice of total slot conductance in radiating waveguides and resistance in feed waveguides 7.5 Sub-array architectures 7.5.1 A planar array of 160 × 160 elements consisting of 10 × 10 element sub-arrays 7.5.2 A slot array with 8 × 8 radiating elements consisting of two sub-arrays 7.5.3 A slot array with four-element sub-arrays 7.6 Examples of planar slot array designs 7.6.1 Large array design using the infinite array model [11,15] 7.6.2 An 8 × 8 slot array for radiometer application 7.7 Design of a travelling wave feed for a planar array 7.7.1 Design procedure for a travelling wave feed in terms of scattering wave representation of a coupling slot 7.7.2 Computed results 7.8 A review of other methods for analysis and design in the literature 7.9 The generalised scattering matrix model for analysis and design References Inspec keywords: planar antenna arrays; slot antenna arrays; antenna feeds Other keywords: total normalised resistance; infinite array model; feed waveguides; parallel feed network; radiating waveguides; normalised slot conductance; travelling wave slot arrays; Elliott design procedure; planar slotted waveguide array antenna design; planar standing wave slot arrays Subjects: Antenna accessories; Antenna arrays