A Radiation Pattern Modeling Method of the Phased Array for SAR Applications

Inhalt:
A radiation pattern modelling method which is based on the measured characteristics of phased array elements is proposed in this paper. The mathematical model has been developed with the measured radio frequency characteristics of each channel and near field of the array elements. Furthermore, program codes have been implemented based on the differential evolution optimization algorithm and fast Fourier-Transform algorithm. According to the method, several beam-widening radiation patterns of a practical phased array designed for Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) applications have been calculated and measured. The comparison has shown small discrepancies between the predication and measurement. This proposed method is appropriate for evaluating the far-field characteristics of a large-scale phased array while the calibration and test processes can be avoided. In addition, it is suitable for the pattern re-configuration of the phased array in practice.