Nonplanar microstrip arrays

Pattern synthesis using planar arrays was done extensively in the past, mainly in the context of radar antennas where a cosec² beam is required in the elevation plane. The synthesis leads to a set of coefficients for the array elements which may be difficult to realize and which, if realizable, may lead to a very narrow-band performance. In this paper, a new type of array is proposed. The shaped-beam nonplanar array is an array of microstrip elements, where the phasing is not generated through the feeding network, but by shaping the substrate. Microstrip arrays lend themselves well to a configuration similar to the one proposed, and as it is shown, the final thickness of the array does not exceed a few substrate thicknesses