Synthesis of Timed Antenna Arrays for Flat-top Energy Patterns

This paper reports a new research in the field of the timed antenna arrays. It is presented as a novel synthesis of timed antenna arrays for flat-top energy patterns. The synthesis is carried out by optimizing true-time delays and amplitudes of different pulsed antenna arrays. Specially, the study regards the linear array, uniform square array, and uniform concentric ring array geometries. The optimization process is carried out by the well-known sequential quadratic programming. This methodology is compared with the particle swarm optimization algorithm in terms of computational cost and the quality of solution. The results show the performance of different timed antenna arrays with optimum flat energy patterns. The mutual coupling effects are included by a full-wave simulation of Vivaldi elements for the timed linear array in order to verify the proposed method. Important remarks are given for the design of timed antenna arrays for a flat-top energy pattern.