Development of frequency diverse array radar technology: a review

Electronic beam steering with greater efficiency is a vibrant feature of a phased array antenna, but for all the range cells, it is fixed at a specific angle. To mitigate this problem, frequency diverse array (FDA) antenna was proposed. This study presents a review on the development of FDA technology in radar and navigation applications. FDA is different from a conventional phased array antenna radar in a sense that it uses a small frequency offset across the array, which helps to generate a range, angle and time-dependent beam pattern. This pattern assures the energy transmission towards the desired angle and range cell. In addition, this study also focuses the research on getting range-angle uncoupled beam patterns along with diverse hybrid cognitive FDA design, available in the literature, for improved radar performance.