IMPROVING THE PERFORMANCE OF AN ANTENNA ARRAY BY USING RADAR ABSORBING COVER

Abstract

Improving the performance of a microstrip antenna array has been considered based on the innovative use of an absorbing radar cover.Since the surface wave between antennas array elements plays a major role in mutual coupling and scattering behavior of array antenna. The main objective of this work is to reduce the effect of surface wave between array elements using radar absorbing cover.The absorbing cover has been designed with spatial configuration to get maximum performance at the resonant frequency of the fabricated microstrip antenna array.The measured results of the tested antenna array show a significant reduction of both mutual coupling between array patches and radar cross section of the tested antenna array with minimum side effects on the antenna parameters.