Application of the shared aperture antenna concept

to radar front-ends: advantages and limitations

I. E. Lager, C. Trampuz, M. Simeoni, C. I. Coman , L. P. Ligthart
IRCTR, Delft University of Technology
Mekelweg 4, 2628 CD Delft, the Netherlands
{i.e.lager,c.trampuz,m.simeoni,l.p.ligthart}@tudelft.nl
NATO Consultation, Command and Control Agency (NC3A),

Oude Waalsdorperweg 61, 2597 AK The Hague, the Netherlands

cristian.coman@nc3a.nato.int

AbstractThe shared aperture antenna, an effective and ver-
satile radar front-end design strategy based on deploying in-
terleaved sub-arrays on a common aperture, is discussed. A
number of instantiations of this concept, demonstrating multi-
functionality and polarisation agility capabilities, is described
in detail. Some limitations of this concept are singled out, and
measures to counteract them are put forward.
I. I NTRODUCTION
Present day radar applications place a large scale of de-
mands on the front-ends to support them. Traditional features,
such as narrow beam-width, low side-lobes, beam agility and
wide operational bandwidth are complemented by require-
ments concerning multi-functionality, this often translating in,
among others, the necessity to simultaneously generate several
beams with strict polarisation specications. Furthermore,
some specic types of radars present additional demands.
For example, continuous wave (CW) radars necessitate an
extremely high cross-channel isolation between the transmit
(T) and receive (R) systems.
Confronted with these challenges, the antenna designer
is forced to resort to highly innovative solutions, frontally
tackling the specications not being the most recommendable
approach. For example, the seminal discussion in [1, pp. 14.5
14.6] suggests a signicant relaxation of the inter-channel iso-
lation requirement in CW radars at the expense of reducing the
phase noise that, in turn, implies reducing the path lengths for
the leakage signals. Apparently, this conicts with the physical
possibilities for ensuring the still needed level of separation
between the T and R antennas, but interleaving offers an
elegant solution to reconcile the two aspects. Another example
is provided by the polarisation agility, whose implementation
is traditionally accompanied by a sizeable complication of the
relevant front-end. Again, creative thinking can alleviate this
problem.
The WiSE project, a complex research programme initiated
in 2004 at the International Research Centre for Telecommu-
nication and Radar (IRCTR), has promoted from its beginning
the use of non-periodic and sparse arrays, in conjunction
with sub-array interleaving, for extending the capabilities of
radar front-ends. The assessment of the possibilities offered
by these array architectures materialised in a new concept,
namely the shared aperture antenna. Note that elements of
this approach can be found in other publications, as well.
For example, [2] examines the interleaving of two linear sub-
arrays, while speculating on the possibilities to extend this
strategy for planar arrays. The very term shared aperture
antenna is found, as such, in [3], with reference to a 3D
compound consisting of stacked arrays that radiate through the
same aperture, the upper one operating in the L-band and being
electrically transparent for the lower one that operates in the X-
band. While the account clearly demonstrates the effectiveness
of this design, its applicability is (severely) restricted on a
twofold argument: the complexity of the complete ensemble
is very high, this entailing high implementation costs, and
the solution is only amenable to multi-frequency systems
characterised by a (very) wide spacing between the operating
frequencies of the pertaining sub-arrays. At variance with these
approaches, the shared aperture antenna concept, as advocated
in this work, addresses explicitly the case of 2D arrays and
attempts at resolving the aperture sharing in one plane, a
choice that induces both an immediate simplication of the
required power distribution network and a relaxation of the
conditions on the sub-systems to be combined.
The efcacy of the shared aperture antenna concept is
demonstrated in this contribution by means of three systems
designed by means of this versatile instrument, insisting on its
large potential for solving complex implementation problems
in the realm of radar front-ends. The nal part of the work will
cast a glimpse on the limitations that are still encountered and
that immediately present the challenges to be addressed in the
(near) future.
II. T HE SHARED APERTURE ANTENNA CONCEPT
The general idea behind this concept is illustrated in Fig. 1.
It assumes that several sub-arrays, each of which consists of
identical radiators, are more or less arbitrarily deployed on a
common aperture. Note that the front-ends developed thus far
at IRCTR by means of this method employed a planar aperture
as support, although the strategy can be straightforwardly
extended to cover conformal arrays. Each sub-array is taken
to implement one specic functionality, the complete systems
having, thus, the possibility to concurrently support several
required services.

Radiator for Radiator for Radiator for

functionality F1 functionality F2 functionality F3

Fig. 1. Illustrative for the shared aperture antenna concept: different sets of
radiators (sub-arrays) implement different fucntionalities.
Fig. 2. Shared aperture array antenna accommodating 2 types of elements
tuned to 8.2 GHz (sub-array SAL ) and tuned to 9 GHz (sub-array SAH ),
The pivotal aspect in the implementation of the shared respectively. The placement uses a deterministic CDS strategy.
aperture antenna concept is the adequate design of the indi-
vidual sub-arrays, an overview on the various concrete design
instruments that are available to this end being provided in [4]. B. Shared aperture antenna implementing polarisation agility
Depending on the application at hand, the generated beams
Another example demonstrating the multi-function potential
may need to have similar proles or not, the former, more
of the shared aperture concept concerns the polarisation agile
elaborate, case requiring special measures to be taken during
system depicted in Fig. 4. Just like in the case discussed in
the design of the relevant sub-arrays. Tackling this complex
Section III-A, the array architecture at hand is representative
design objective can be effectively dealt with by resorting to
for a complementary division of an initial, fully populated
deterministic placement methods, such as the one described in
[5] that, in turn, employs the strategy introduced in [6]. 0
30

III. E XAMPLES OF SHARED APERTURE ARCHITECTURES 25 5

element index (iL )

The validity of the hereby advocated approach is now 20

VSWR=2
demonstrated by discussing three instantiations of the shared
15
aperture antenna concept. VSWR=1
15
10

A. Multi-frequency shared aperture antenna

5 20
A rst example of a shared aperture refers to the an-
7 7.5 8 8.5 9 9.5 10
tenna shown in Fig. 2. It combines two non-periodic arrays f (GHz)
consisting of elements tuned to 8.2 GHz, denoted as sub- a
array SAL , and to 9 GHz, denoted as sub-array SAH . The 30
0

design principles employed for generating the placement were

25 5
described in [5] and are based on the Cyclic Difference
element index (iH )

Sets (CDS) strategy described in [6]. Supplementary details 20 VSWR=2

concerning the manufacturing choices and the performance of
this array can be found in [4]. 15
VSWR=1
15
The performance of this shared aperture antenna is demon-
10
strated by the simulation results in Fig. 3. Because the oper- 20
ating bandwidths of the two sub-arrays overlap, a combined, 5

system operational bandwidth stretching between 8.0 GHz and

7 7.5 8 8.5 9 9.5 10
9.5 GHz, amounting to a fractional bandwidth of 17%, is ob- f (GHz)
tained. Furthermore, the employed placement strategy ensures b
a high degree of similarity between the two generated beams
Fig. 3. The frequency dependence of the simulated active reection
(see [5] for the relevant radiation patterns), this feature being coefcient for each elementary radiator in the two subarrays; the solid contours
required in this case for providing the supported service with indicate the levels corresponding to VSWR=2 and VSWR=1.5, respectively.
the full 17% instantaneous operational bandwidth. (a) Sub-array SAL ; (b) sub-array SAH .
 global input in [5] are illustrated in Fig. 6. These plots document the
sub-array V excellent replication of the required ellipticity even under
(V) A(V) the conditions of scanning at relatively large angles. The
prescribed polarisation is accurately reproduced in the main
beam, with the ellipticity values being clearly different in
Input y the side-lobes region except, possibly, in directions where the
global input
sub-array H radiated power is however negligible.

(H) A(H) z O x 50 0
40

Power radiation pattern (dB)

30 5
20
Fig. 4. Array antenna system composed of two interleaved sparse arrays and

Ellipticity (deg)
10 10
the pertaining phase and amplitude control circuitry required for achieving
polarization agility. 0
10 15
20
30 20
array into two sub-arrays with similar properties in terms of 40
Required ellipticity
beamwidth and side-lobes levels [7], a design feature that is 50 25
18015012090 60 30 0 30 60 90 120 150 180
intrinsic to the employed CDS placement strategy. (deg)
a
50 0
40

Power radiation pattern (dB)

30 5
20
Ellipticity (deg)
10 10
0
10 15
20
y 30 20
40
Required ellipticity
50 25
90 60 30 0 30 60 90
(deg)
z x b
O
Fig. 6. Variation of the total elds ellipticity in the case of the 9 7 CDS-
Fig. 5. Shared aperture array antenna accommodating 32 elements radiating based architecture in Fig. 5 (simulated results). The red curve corresponds to
vertically polarised waves and 31 elements radiating horizontally polarised the ellipticity variation, the cyan one represents the array power radiation
waves. The placement uses a deterministic CDS strategy. pattern and the dashed line indicates the required = 45 ellipticity. (a)
Variation in the { = 30 , [180 , 180 ]} cone; (b) Variation in the
{ = 45 , [90 , 90 ]} plane.
As demonstrated in [8], this system allows a theoretically
exact replication of any prescribed polarisation state (arbitrar-
ily linear and left or right handed circular) in conjunction C. Interleaved T-R antenna for FM-CW radar applications
with beam scanning. The design was also shown to maintain
The third example refers to an aperture accommodating
an adequate polarisation purity under the manifestation of
the interleaved T and R antennas of a frequency modulated,
reasonably strong mutual coupling effects. This statement is
continuous wave (FM-CW) radar (see Fig. 7). By employing
substantiated by analysing the case of the shared aperture
an effective artice, a substantial reduction of the side-lobes
shown in Fig. 5. The array consists of 63 cavity backed, slot
level (SLL) in the two-way radiation pattern is obtained with
antennas deployed on a regular 9 7 lattice. The full array is
respect to that corresponding to a complementary division of
partitioned into 2 sub-arrays, with 32 elements corresponding
a fully populated, uniform array [7]. The variation of the
to the sub-array V in Fig. 4 and 31 to the sub-array H.
P/Pmax ratio, with P = |E T | |E R |, E T and E R denoting
The placement is obtained by using a deterministic CDS
the far-eld electric eld strengths pertaining to the T and
strategy. The case of the radiation of a left-handed, circularly-
R antennas, is represented in Fig. 8 for [0 , 30 ] and
polarised eld, characterized by the ellipticity = 45 is
[0 , 360). The system half-power beamwidths amount
examined. The beam is taken to be scanned in the direction (E) (H)
{, } = {30 , 45 }, with the polar coordinates and to 3dB,sys = 7.57 and 3dB,sys = 0.9 , in the E
measuring the tilting from the positive Ozaxis and the and the Hplanes, respectively1. The peak two-way SLL
trigonometric rotation around it, respectively (see Fig. 5). The 1 With reference to Fig. 7, the Eplane corresponds to the half-plane { =
results of a full-wave, multi-modal simulation of the complete 90 , = 270 , [0 , 90 ]} and Hplane corresponds to the half-plane
conguration effectuated by means of the method described { = 0 , = 180 , [0 , 90 ]}.
 y 10
8
6
4
2
z x
O 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 28 30 32 34 36 38 40 42 44 46 48 50 52 54 56 58 60 62 64 66 68 70 72 74 76 78 80 82 84 86 88 90 92

Fig. 7. FM-CW radar shared aperture antenna array. The dark squares correspond to the T sub-array and the light ones to the R sub-array. The crosses and
the pluses indicate the switched off elements in the T and the R sub-arrays, respectively.

values in the same planes are SLL(E) sys = 29.86 dB and This discussion is concluded by mentioning another aspect
SLL(H)
sys = 32.75 dB, the reduction with respect to the initial that seems of interest is the simultaneous support of more
complementary division of the full array amounting to about systems by the same aperture. As demonstrated in [7], [8],
4 dB and 6.2 dB, respectively. Apart from the performance the CDS placement provides a complementary division of
improvement, this experiment proved that the CDS placement the aperture, yielding two independently usable, fully disjoint
algorithm allows for (small) alterations of the yielded cong- sub-arrays. Nevertheless, accommodating more than two sub-
uration while preserving the predictability of the SLL [7]. arrays that have controllable, if not predictable, radiation
properties is an open question. In this respect, it is interesting
90
30
P/Pmax [dB] to mention the example given in [9] that may act as a precursor
0
120
25
60 to nding a feasible solution to tackle this problem.
5
20
10 V. C ONCLUSIONS
150 15 30
15 Three concrete illustrations of the effectiveness of the shared
10 aperture antenna concept were presented. By concomitantly
20
5
25 supporting two independent systems, multi-functionality can
180 0 30
be implemented and some intrinsic elementary antenna limita-
35
tions can be circumvented. The concept is far from exhausting
its potential and more research needs being called upon for
40
counteracting some observed limitations, the limited inter-
45
210 peak
peak twoway
twoway SLL
SLL 330 system isolation in the rst place.
50

240 300
270
Fig. 8. The normalized, system pattern for [0 , 30 ] and [0 , 360 )
at the center frequency fc = 9.4 GHz.
IV. I SSUED STILL TO BE ADDRESSED
The shared aperture antenna does provide expedient means
for extending the capabilities of array antennas and for imple-
menting multi-functionality. Nevertheless, the approach is not
free of limitations that have to be realistically examined and
adequate solutions to counteract them need being contrived.
To begin with, the fact that elements pertaining to two
systems coexist in a tight conguration automatically raises
the inter-channel isolation issue. While in the case of the
polarisation agile system in Fig. 4 the impact of the mutual
coupling was shown to be tolerable, in the case of the FM-CW
radar the isolation demands are much higher. This aspect still
remains an open topic of investigation.
Secondly, one must observe that ensuring the multi func-
tionality on the same aperture entails a reduction of the
antenna gain corresponding to each sub-array and, thus, to the
supported service. Depending on the application at hand, this
reduction may render the shared aperture solution impractical.
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