Simulation and Experimental Studies for the Active Reflection Coefficient of Phased Array Antenna on Mutual Coupling

The realistic and efficient mutual coupling analysis model is very essential for the design of phased array antennas. The mutual coupling effect of the array can usually be characterized by the active reflection coefficient explicitly. In this paper, the active reflection coefficient of array antenna has been extracted by the infinite array method based on simulation and scattering (coupling) coefficient synthesis method from experiment study. First, infinite array method is adopted to design the phased array antenna. The properties of the active reflection coefficient of the central element are optimized and obtained in an infinite array environment. Then the array antenna with 169 elements are studied and developed. The amplitude and phase changes of the scattering coefficients between the central element and any other element are tested and recorded. Finally, the scattering coefficient synthesis method is used to calculate the active reflection coefficient from the experiment data. The experimental results of the finite array are demonstrated that the angles and frequency bands of the scan blindness, the magnitude and the overall trend of the active reflection coefficient all agree well with the simulation results of infinite array method. As a result, the practical effect has been well verified.