Complementarity in non-periodic and interleaved array antennas design

Ioan E. Lager, Massimiliano Simeoni

Non-periodic and interleaved array antennas represent a viable solution to antenna beam shaping and to implementing multi-functionality in radio-channel applications. By distributing the elements in a (highly) non-regular manner, such conflicting requirements as narrow beam and grating-lobes free scanning over large angular ranges can be reconciled, while maintaining technological feasibility. Moreover, as a result of the non-uniform element deployment, some (occasionally, sizeable) portion of the overall real estate becomes available. This space can then be re-used for deploying other antenna systems, the interleaved structure thus obtained providing a straightforward handle to implementing multi-functionality in the supported radio-channel application.

A particularly interesting deployment strategy calls upon thinning techniques that intrinsically yield a complementary division of the area occupied by the antenna system. The talk will briefly outline the benefits of using such placement, with an emphasis on the possibility to effectively implement polarisation agility.