Scan Blindness Phenomenon in Conformal Finite Phased Arrays of Printed Dipoles

Abstract

Abstract-Scan blindness phenomenon for finite phased arrays of printed dipoles on material coated, electrically large circular cylinders is investigated. Effects on the scan blindness mechanism of several array and supporting structure parameters, including curvature effects, are observed and discussed. A full-wave solution, based on a hybrid method of moments/Green's function technique in the spatial domain, is used to achieve the aforementioned goals. Numerical results show that the curvature affects the surface waves and hence the mutual coupling between array elements. As a result, the array current distribution of arrays mounted on coated cylinders are considerably different compared to similar arrays on planar platforms. Therefore, finite phased arrays of printed dipoles on coated cylinders show different behavior in terms of scan blindness phenomenon compared to their planar counterparts. Furthermore, this phenomenon is completely different for axially and circumferentially oriented printed dipoles on coated cylinders suggesting that particular element types might be important for cylindrical arrays.

Pseudopotentials: A Simplified Model for Certain Types of Array Elements

“…Differences do exist, however; for instance, B( ) = 0 for the pseudopotential array [see(10)] but not (always) for the dipole array[28] (10). …”

Numerical Modeling of Conformal Phased Arrays on Tactical Systems

“…To that end, the recent investigations in [18] suggest that the full-wave, exact cylindrical Green's function solution needs to be decomposed into its special forms for blind angle calculation for conformal phased array of axial or circumferential microstrip dipoles.…”

“…(52)], can assume different approximate but numerically efficient forms in these regions. Equivalently, such regions can be defined in terms of a Fock parameter (defined later in this paper) as in [18,Eqs. (4), (5)].…”

“…(The reasons for this will be discussed later in this paper). In absence of such a uniform formulation, a switchover criterion similar to the one in [18,Eqs. (4), (5)], needs to be developed for analyzing conformal arrays shown in Fig. 2.…”

“…The final objective is to calculate the blind angles similar to [18], and this requires the calculation of the self impedances. These self impedances are found via the complementary dipole relationship [10, p. 380 The present work culiminates from some earlier investigations [38]- [40].…”