A Monocone-Bicone Collinear Array

A wideband monocone-bicone array is designed that has on average 5.5 dB higher gain than a single monocone antenna. The array is fed using a novel feed technique that enables performance similar to that of an ideally fed array. The computed bandwidth that takes into account the radiation pattern stability over a field of view determined by ideal array theory, specifically the radiation pattern of a continuously scaled resonant thin monopole-dipole array is used as a benchmark with respect to which the bandwidth of various monocone-bicone arrays are computed and optimized. Two cost functions are proposed and optimal configurations are determined. It is shown that the antennas maintain performance better than the baseline monopole-dipole array for more than 80% of a 10:1 bandwidth. Methods for feeding the array and mitigating unwanted radiation from the feed network are also explored. Theoretical results are well supported by measurements. The effects of a non-ideal combiner and the finite sized ground plane are also discussed.