Vertical Beam Shaping with Metal Strips in a Linear Edge Slot Array

The control of the elevation (H-plane) pattern for a class of linear, edge slot array antennas is investigated. The basic antenna comprises an edge slot array and a horn, which provides limited shaping of the elevation pattern. The insertion of metal strips into the horn mouth for further control of the elevation pattern is studied. Both a genetic algorithm (GA) and a particle swarm optimizer (PSO) are used to search for the optimum locations and sizes of the metal inserts. Finally, computed results for an optimized antenna with one rectangular strip are compared to both a commercial simulation package (HFSS [1]) results and measured results.