Coherently Radiating Periodic Structures to Reduce the Number of Phase Shifters in a 2-D Phased Array

Abstract

This paper illustrates the application of CORPS (coherently radiating periodic structures) for feeding 2-D phased arrays with a reduced number of phase shifter (PS) devices. Three design configurations using CORPS are proposed for 2-D phased arrays. The design model of phased array for these configurations considers the cophasal excitation required for this structure to set a strategic way for feeding the antenna elements and reducing the number of PS devices. Blocks of 2 × 3 and 4 × 7 CORPS networks depending on the configuration in the 2-D phased array are set strategically in the feeding network to generate the cophasal excitation required in the antenna elements. These design configurations used for feeding the antenna elements in the planar array geometry provide several advantages with respect to others in the scanning capability and the reduction of the number of PS devices of the array system. The full-wave simulation results for the proposed configurations in 2-D phased arrays provide a reduction in the number of PSs of until 69% for a scanning range of ±25° in elevation and ±40° in azimuth. The application of the raised cosine amplitude distribution could generate radiation patterns with a SLL_PEAK ≈ −19 dB and SLL_PEAK ≈ −23 dB for the design proposed configurations in all the scanning range.

A New Scheme of Applying CORPS and Crossovers to Reduce the Number of Phase Shifters in Antenna Arrays

“…The feeding network systems based on CORPS have been introduced previously in [ 20 , 21 , 22 , 23 ]. The CORPS networks consist of the iteration of recombination and split nodes [ 23 ].…”

“…An interesting property of the CORPS networks was studied in [ 21 , 22 ]. This property considers that if 2 signals are fed to a CORPS network of 2 × 3, as shown in Figure 2 , the phase average of the two signals is obtained at the output of the recombination node.…”

“…There are several design methodologies in the literature for generating beam-forming networks. There is an interesting study line from the traditional (or classical) networks such as the butler matrix [ 3 ], Blass [ 4 ], and Nolen [ 5 ] to the most recent feeding networks for reducing the number of active devices including the application of subarrays [ 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 ], overlapping techniques [ 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 ], interleaving schemes [ 19 ] and CORPS (coherently radiating periodic structures) networks [ 20 , 21 , 22 , 23 ].…”

“…It has been demonstrated recently that the CORPS technique reduces the number of phase shifters for linear [ 21 ] and planar [ 22 ] antenna arrays. Although these configurations of the previous work provide an interesting way of applying CORPS considering the cophasal excitation required for beam-scanning, the application of CORPS for reducing the number of phase shifters in the beam-forming network is really scarce in the literature.…”

Coherently Radiating Periodic Structures for Feeding Concentric Rings Array with Reduced Number of Phase Shifters

“…The techniques based on CORPS have been studied for reducing the number of phase shifters in the BFN. Several CORPS network configurations have been analyzed yielding a better scanning capability with respect to other BFN configurations [ 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 ].…”