The X-band Large Phased Array Sparse Research

The main motivation to thinning is the reduction in cost and weight. The technique allows getting nearly the same narrow beamwidth as for a filled array of equal size. Another advantage is that when the turned on elements operate with equal amplitude, lower sidelobes can be obtained as for the same filled array illuminated with uniform weighting. Up till now the design of large thinned planar arrays was based on the use of the statistical density taper technique developed by Mailloux et al.[1]. but this method requires a large number of calculations to get a better arrangement, it is difficult to get a good array at a time. In this paper we proposed an improved statistical thinning method and an un-statistical thinning method. With our improved method, a substantial reduction of side-lobe was obtained with only one trial.This topic is very innovative and the paper did the following work on the topic:1) Through the analyzing and summarizing the research of thinning antenna at home and abroad.2) Beginning from the planar array designing principles, we analyzed several aperture array designing.3) In this paper we proposed an improved method to design the thinned arrays with pretreatment. Before the procedure of thinning, the elements in the planar array should be sorted properly.4) An improved method was indicated to design the thinned arrays combined with pretreatment. And the thinning function and the results were compared with that of IFT.5) The algorithm was extended to the linear array with the results been compared with classic paper.6) Amplitude and phase errors and positional tolerance of the thinning array were analyzed.7) The software designing included the planar array designing and the thinning array designing.