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AbstractA method of manufacturing an array antenna including a designing step which comprises determining a one-dimensional reference radiation pattern and an associated reference aperture and computing the cumulative phasorial summation of the field distribution of the reference aperture in a reference direction and representing it as a reference curve in the complex plane. The international organitation is looking for a company which industrializes the described technology.DetailsThe innovation relates to a method of designing and manufacturing an array antenna comprising a designing step and a step of physically manufacturing the array antenna. The inventive contribution of the proposal essentially lies in the designing step. Array antennas offer several advantages over reflector antennas. One of the major is the fact that the array excitation may be closely controlled to generate extremely low sidelobe patterns, or very accurate approximation of a selected radiation pattern. Array antennas are flexible and versatile: by changing the complex feeding excitations (in amplitude and phase) the array pattern may be completely reconfigured. Several methods have been introduced to design linear and planar arrays. The method of this technological proposal can be applied to the design and manufacturing of different kind of antenna, such as: direct radiating planar arrays generating a multibeam coverage for satellite applications with a reduced number of active elements and an equal or stepped amplitude tapering; arrays feeding a reflector (single/multiple) or a lens (dielectric, metallic, constrained, zoned, etc.); discrete passive or active planar lens.Innovative Aspects: This proposal concerns a method of manufacturing an array antenna comprising a step of designing an array pattern and a step of physically manufacturing the array antenna, the method has the following (a) determining a continuous or discrete one-dimensional reference aperture, associated to a one-dimensional reference radiation pattern; (b) choosing a reference radiation direction for the reference radiation pattern; (c) computing a cumulative phasorial summation of a field distribution of the reference aperture in the reference direction and representing the summation as a reference curve in a complex plane; (d) determining a polygonal curve constituting a polygonal approximation of the reference curve, subject to predetermined constraints; (e) determining, from the polygonal curve, an array pattern wherein each side of the polygonal curve is associated to a particular antenna element of the array, each of which represents a normalized amplitude of the excitation field associated with the corresponding antenna element; (f) the angles formed by each pair of adjacent sides correspond to a parameter chosen among the following: - a distance between the elements of the array associated to the sides; - a difference between the phases of the excitation fields associated with the elements of the array; - a combination of both.
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