A simple approach to synthesis of arrays with shaped pattern and low side lobe level

The problem of synthesizing an antenna pattern for a particular application has received much attention since antennas were first introduced. Much work has focused on the design of arrays of antennas. The main goal of antenna array synthesis is to find appropriate weighting coefficients to yield a desired radiation pattern. We present a new, simple method to synthesize radiation patterns of antenna arrays with shaped patterns and low side-lobes based on a phased array technique. This method is based on the following prior knowledge: by superposition, we can always use numerous antenna arrays with low side lobes to construct one antenna system which can realize the desired shaped pattern in a given region. Because all the arrays used have a low side-lobe level, regions that have no main beam shifted into them have low sidelobes. Because the method is based on superposition, different element patterns and higher dimensionality cause no difficulties. The effectiveness of the approach is confirmed by examples for equispaced linear arrays and for planar arrays.