Optimal Taper Design for Overlapped Subarray Formation

Subarray formation is common in radar and sonar beamforming applications. Overlapped subarrays are of special interest, since they can provide additional control towards minimizing grating lobes. This paper proposes a methodology towards computing subarray tapers that optimally minimize sidelobe and grating lobe levels while providing a uniform weighting over the array. This also allows maximum flexibility for subsequent digital beamforming with multiple beams within the subarray beam mainlobe. Finally, resulting beampatterns are presented and compared with other design techniques.