Analysis of Antenna Arrays Using Personal Computers
An antenna array is a group of antennas arranged in such a way to produce a radiated
field with specific radiation characteristics that cannot be achieved by a
single antenna. There are several configurations used for grouping individual
antennas into arrays. The most common array configurations are linear (uniform,
nonuniform, binomial, etc.), two-dimensional (circular, rectangular, etc.), and
three-dimensional (cubic, spherical, etc.). Different aspects of the analysis
of antenna arrays have been dealt with in several text books. Computer
aided instructions are also available for selected types of arrays. The
objective of this software package is to provide a comprehensive coverage for
the analysis of antenna arrays that can be used for undergraduate education.
The "ARRAYS" (version 2) software package is designed to help students
understand, in an interactive and visual procedure, the analysis of many types
of antenna arrays using the principle of pattern multiplication. Furthermore,
this software provides a visual response, almost immediately, of the effects of
changing any of the antenna parameters on its radiation pattern. This feature is
important in familiarizing students with the elementary patterns of different types
of antennas before using them in an array.
Version 2 of "ARRAYS" is developed as an upgrade of the first version of "ARRAYS".
The most important features of this upgrade are: menu windows that can be
controlled with a mouse or keyboard cursor keys; multiple planes for calculating
and observing the radiation patterns (the user can now choose three planes of
observation which can be toggled during the viewing screens); single item editing,
(the user can edit a single piece of data instead of re-inputting the entire list
of data); the ability to save the computed radiation patterns for future display
and analysis, user-defined data for element patterns and pattern scanning for
specific levels by two distinct pointers.
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