CPC G01R 29/10 (2013.01) [G01R 29/0864 (2013.01); H01Q 3/267 (2013.01)] | 20 Claims |
1. A method for manufacturing a phased array antenna, the method comprising:
designing a proposed phased array antenna having a target array of antenna elements;
modeling the proposed phased array antenna, including:
selecting a small array of antenna elements wherein the small array of antenna elements has fewer antenna elements than the target array of antenna elements,
for each antenna element of the small array of antenna elements, capturing far field patterns for a plurality of signal frequencies,
capturing S-parameters for the small array of antenna elements for the plurality of signal frequencies, wherein each antenna element in the small array of antenna elements is regarded as a port of the small array of antenna elements when capturing the S-parameters for the small array of antenna elements,
mapping the far field patterns captured for the antenna elements of the small array of antenna elements to the antenna elements of the target array of antenna elements, wherein mapping the far field patterns includes:
mapping far field patterns of corner antenna elements of the small array of antenna elements to corresponding corner antenna elements of the target array of antenna elements; and
mapping far field patterns of each antenna element along each outside edge of the small array of antenna elements to an antenna element along a corresponding outside edge of the target array of antenna elements, except for one antenna element of each outside edge of the small array of antenna elements, which is mapped into all remaining antenna elements of the corresponding outside edge of the target array of antenna elements; and
mapping the S-parameters captured for the small array of antenna elements to the target array of antenna element, wherein each antenna element in the target array of antenna elements is regarded as a port of the target array of antenna elements when mapping the S-parameters to the target array of antenna elements;
predicting performance of the proposed phased array antenna based on the modeling; and
when the predicted performance is satisfactory, physically building the proposed phased array antenna.
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