Phased Array Antenna Patterns—Part 3: Sidelobes and Tapering

by Peter Delos, Technical Lead, Bob Broughton, Director of Engineering, and Jon Kraft, Senior Staff Field Applications Engineer, Analog Devices, Inc.

Introduction

In Part 1, we introduced the phased array concept, beam steering, and array gain. In Part 2, we presented the concept of grating lobes and beam squint. In this section, we begin with a discussion of antenna sidelobes and the effect of tapering across an array. Tapering is simply the manipulation of the amplitude contribution of an individual element to the overall antenna response.

In Part 1, no tapering was applied and the first sidelobes were –13 dBc as seen in the figures. Tapering provides a method to reduce antenna sidelobes at some expense to the antenna gain and main lobe beamwidth. Following an introduction to tapering, we will elaborate on a few points relative to antenna gain.

Due to the precise placement of images and equations in the article, it is available as a pdf.

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To read part one of this article – click here.

To read part two of this article – click here.

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