ANALYSIS AND SYNTHESIS OF RADAR CROSS SECTION OF ARRAY ANTENNAS

Our previous work has proved that the Monostatic Radar Cross Section (MRCS) of array antennas can be decomposed into the multiplication of array MRCS factor and element MRCS factor. The principle was derived in a special case that the array only had dipole antenna elements. However, many array antennas have more general antenna elements whose current is aperture distributed along the antenna structure. Obviously it encounters limited application problem when the principle is used to analyze more general array antennas other than dipole arrays. Therefore, the principle is extended into the more general array with arbitrary aperture antenna elements in this paper. In deriving the principle, the devices in the feed are assumed to have identical transmission and re∞ection coe-cients. In order to validate the principle the scattering pattern of a waveguide slot array and an array with helix antenna elements are synthesized utilizing the array RCS factor. The simulation and calculation results prove that the principle is correct for the RCS pattern synthesis of general arrays with aperture antenna elements.