2-D Pattern Reconfigurable Array Antenna with Excitation Phase Difference Circuit

This paper proposes a sparse array antenna using two-dimensional pattern reconfigurable antenna. In order to cut down the manufacturing cost of active phased array antenna, the number of T/R modules is drastically reduced. The proposed antenna composes of four patch antenna elements as subarrays, and subarray spacing increases in size. The radiation pattern of the subarray can be changed by varying the excitation phase of each element with simple feed circuit. Thus, to avoid the degradation of antenna performances due to arising grating lobes, the proposed antenna improves the gain of the main lobe direction and can reduce the gain in the direction at which the grating lobe arise. The effectiveness of the proposed antenna is verified through the numerical simulation.