Design of Amplitude and Phase Controlled Butler Beamforming Network for X/Ku-Band Airborne Synthetic Aperture Radar Applications

Abstract

Beamforming networks play an important role in today's communication systems. The Butler matrix network is one of the most useful networks used to feed array antennas and generate multi-beamforming systems. Its complexity increases with an increase in the number of input and output ports. This research work presents simulated results of an unequal amplitude 8 × 8 Butler matrix network, in which the Taylor series synthesis technique was employed to generate unequal amplitudes (-9.626, -9.125, -8.798, -8.636, -8.636, -8.798, -9.125, and -9.626 dB). The design of the Butler matrix beamforming network is based on two frequency bands, i.e., the X-band and Ku-band, with center frequencies of 9.3 and 13.265 GHz, respectively. The design mainly involves 12 hybrid couplers and eight phase shifters that can generate beams in eight different directions (-32.4°, -26.5°, -15.5°, -10.3°, 10.3°, 15.5°, 26.5°, and 32.4°). This design is based on the Taylor series expansion, which has the advantage of sidelobe level reduction of -17 dB. All of the simulations were done using advanced design system software key sight technologies. The simulations results were in line with the theoretical calculations.