Beamformer for Cylindrical Conformal Array of Non-isotropic Antennas

Abstract

The principal objective of this investigation is to facilitate minimum variance distortionless response (MVDR) beamforming technique for a cylindrical conformal array geometry. An array of directional radiating elements is postulated to cover a surface typical of the cylinder of an aircraft or missile. Borrowing the analysis of conformal array antennas, the authors first derive a deterministic expression that describes the beam pattern of arbitrary weighted cylindrical conformal array. Then, making use of the MVDR beamforming, we derive the beamformer for uniform linear array (ULA) of directional antennas which are different from the traditional omnidirectional elements. Thus, the pattern of a directional element is synthesized by the antennas on the same ring array, and we design the MVDR beamformer, which uses MVDR beamforming for ULA of the synthesized pattern. To demonstrate the validity of the method, and cylinder arrays are constructed and experimental results agree well with theoretical expectations.

Keywords

• airborne radar
• antenna arrays
• phased arrays
• antenna radiation patterns
• radar antennas