Design of X° rotating-scanning circular antenna array for synthetic aperture radiometer

In recent years, a new scanning type, called rotating scanning, is introduced to synthetic aperture radiometer. In the literatures, synthetic aperture radiometer obtained spatial frequency samplings usually by 360° rotating-scanning circular antenna array. As the rotating-scanning angle of the antenna array is not 360°, how to obtain the even sampling points on the spatial frequency domain and decrease the system complexity is very important. In this paper, we focus on design of x° rotating-scanning circular antenna array, where x is in the range of 0 to 180. Firstly, the background is introduced. Secondly, the design requirements are analyzed, and the design strategy is proposed subsequently. Thirdly, 180°, 90° and 45° rotating-scanning circle antenna array are designed as examples via numerical simulating. The simulation results prove the validity of the design strategy. The design method can be used to optimize other similar rotating-scanning circular antenna array that with different rotating-scanning angle.