A wide-scan phased array antenna for a small active electronically scanned array

This paper presents an array antenna for a ground surveillance radar. The application requires a low-cost antenna with a wide-scan capability over an approximately 10% bandwidth at X-band. It should also be designed for easy integration with the antenna active electronics. The antenna aperture consists of five slotted waveguides, designed with an electromagnetic simulator program. A prototype antenna was manufactured and the S-parameters and the radiation patterns of the individual waveguide columns were measured. The results were combined to active VSWR and full, superposed radiation patterns for different scan angles and aperture distributions. The measured data show very good performance for the full scan area ±40°.