A study of space-tapered arrays

Previous works on nonuniformly spaced arrays are first critically reviewed, then an exhaustive study of a few small arrays is made. The results reveal that among a large number of possible element arrangements, only very few yield reasonably low sidelobe level. Although the majority of these few arrays are characterized by space-tapering, an overwhelming number of space-tapered arrays do not have low sidelobe level. Some statistical studies are made in order to relate the sidelobe level to the element arrangement. Finally, in the light of rather complete information of these arrays, a comparative study is made on some designs which are proposed by a few authors. The results show that none of them are truly optimum.