International Conference on Antenna Theory and Techniques, 6-9 October, 2009, Lviv, Ukraine pp.

13-18

SLOTTED WAVEGUIDE ANTENNAS FOR

PRACTICAL RADAR SYSTEMS
Sekretarov S. S. and Vavriv D. M.
Institute of Radio Astronomy of the National Academy of Science of Ukraine, Kharkiv,
Ukraine
E-mail: [email protected]

Abstract
This paper summarizes recent results on the development, fabrication, and applica-
tion of slotted waveguide antenna systems for practical radar systems, including Ka-
band helicopter collision avoidance and weather radar, Ku-band surveillance and track-
ing radar, and X-band airborne SAR system. The corresponding design solutions, anten-
na characteristics, and test results are presented and discussed.

Keywords: Slot antennas, Aircraft antennas, Antenna array feeds

1. INTRODUCTION design described in [4]. The P-i-N switch used in the

antenna system is the state-of-the-art device which is
Recently, several novel slotted waveguide antenna ar-
characterized by both a high commutated power – of
rays (SWA) for radars operating in Ka-, Ku-, and X- about several kilowatts, and a rather low switching time
bands have been developed at the Institute of Radio – of about several microseconds.
Astronomy of the National Academy of Sciences of The target antenna parameters are: the fan-like
Ukraine. Each of these antenna arrays has some specif- beam of the width of 2×10, the sidelobes level of -22
ic design features, which were introduced to meet chal- dB, the antenna gain of 30 dB and the VSWR of 1.2 or
lenging operational requirements of the radars. In this better in the operational bandwidth of 35±0.2 GHz.
paper, we review the corresponding design solutions, Each individual section of the antenna system is
antenna characteristics, and test results. produced as shown in Fig. 1. Radiating layer is a col-
In the next section, we describe an electrically lection of nine identical nonresonant (travelling-wave)
switchable, Ka–band antenna system, which consists of radiating arrays fed from one end and matched from
four SWAs. This antenna system has been developed another. The feeding layer is a single resonant (stand-
for a helicopter collision avoidance and weather radar ing-wave) feeding array of inclined slots placed in the
intended to increase the flight safety of helicopters. edge of the antenna.
In Section 3, a Ku–band, circular-aperture SWA According to [5], we synthesize the radiation pattern
for a monopulse search and tracking radar is described. in both planes by using the following amplitude
The SWA forms the antenna beam, which is inclined distribution:
with respect to the antenna surface normal. This solu-   n  N  1     n  N 1  2 
2
tion enables to reduce essentially the radar visibility in U n    1      exp     ,
  N     N  
the direction of an illuminated target.  
In the last section, a possibility of the development where Un is the normalized amplitude at the n-th slot,
of wideband SWAs is demonstrated. This is confirmed 2N-1 is the number of slots,
by the development of an X-band SWA with the rela-
This Gauss-Bessel distribution
tive bandwidth of about 15%. This antenna is intended
for a high resolution airborne SAR system to be pro-
duced at the institute.

2. ELECTRICALLY SWITCHABLE SLOTTED

WAVEGUIDE ANTENNA SYSTEM
An electrically switchable, Ka-band antenna array sys-
tem has been designed for airborne radar applications.
The system consists of four identical SWA sections.
The sections are connected to a radar transmit-
ter/receiver by means of a high-power, multipole P-i-N
switch. The SWA has been developed by using the
conventional methods [1-3], modern antenna simula-
tion techniques and original approaches to the antenna Fig. 1. Antenna construction
 Sekretarov S. S. and Vavriv D. M.
enables for the realization of radiation patterns having VSWR on the operating frequency obtained from the
both maximal gain and minimal sidelobe level. In con- theoretical and experimental results. The antenna
trast to the standard distributions, like Tchebyshev dis- demonstrates a rather low value of the VSWR in the
tribution, this distribution has no unrealizable prescribed frequency band what simplifies its matching
amplitude jumps at the end elements in the case of a with the radar transmitter and receiver.
large number of elements. In order to protect the antenna from dust and
It should be noted that the aperture distribution is moisture, a radome coating has been designed and
separable here. Moreover, the aperture distribution in introduced. The radome is made of a 4 mm foam sheet
the H-plane is determined by only the single linear ra- placed directly on the antenna radiating surface. The
diating array, and that in the E-plane is determined be sheet is stabilized by means of 50 m lavsan film. As it
the feeding array. The mutual coupling between the can be seen from Fig. 2, the radome exerts a rather small
radiating and feeding arrays is weak, because they are influence on the radiation pattern.
displaced one from another and the radiating arrays are The main lobe of the pattern measured in the H-
designed to minimize backward reflections inside the plane is a little wider (below the 3 dB level) than the
working bandwidth. calculated one. It is because of phase errors associated
The designed antenna sections have been fabricated with the finite tolerance of the antenna fabrication. The
by using metal coating, milling, electric-sparking, and level of sidelobes is as low as -23 dB what satisfies the
laser welding technologies. These technologies allow for design goal as well.
producing such antennas with rather high reproducibility The complete antenna system consists of four inde-
of the antenna characteristics. We have also observed a pendent slotted waveguide sections, which are shown
rather high degree of compliance of the measured and
simulated results. In Fig. 2, the corresponding
comparison is shown for the radiation patterns in both
planes.
Fig. 3 plots and compares the dependence of the

Fig. 3. Calculated and measured VSWR

(a)

(b)
Fig. 2. Calculated and measured radiation pattern for Fig. 4. A photo of the antenna system integrated to a
the designed SWA, a) H-plane; b) E-plane. transmitter/receiver module

14 International Conference on Antenna Theory and Techniques, 6-9 October, 2009, Lviv, Ukraine
 Slotted Waveguide Antennas for Practical Radar Systems
in Fig. 4 integrated to the transmitter/receiver module value larger than the antenna beamwidth. It has ap-
of the airborne radar. The section dimensions are peared that the standard feeding layer design with sin-
310×72×9 mm3. The antenna beams are displaced with gle feeding waveguide for each of the antenna halves is
the step of 16º in the elevation plane providing the total not valid. The problem is that in this case, it is needed
observation sector of about 60º. The sections are to use feeding waveguides operating very closely to
switched electrically by using an original high power their cut-off frequency, or close to a high-order mode
reciprocal SP4T switch based on P-i-N diodes. The cut-off. To solve the problem, we have proposed to use
switch is based on three waveguide Y-junctions con- the feeding layer with pair-waveguides to feed the both
nected as a binary tree. halves of the antenna. In this design, the first wave-
The developed and produced antenna system along guide of the feeding pair feeds the odd radiating wave-
with other hardware and software solutions has enabled
for achieving rather attractive characteristics of the
complete radar system, which is the helicopter collision
avoidance, surveillance, and weather radar [6].

3. CIRCULAR SWA WITH INCLINED BEAM

In this section, we describe a Ku–band, circular-
aperture SWA for a monopulse search and tracking
radar. In order to decrease the radar visibility of the
antenna in the direction of an illuminated target, the
antenna beam is inclined with respect to the antenna
surface normal.
The target antenna parameters are: the pencil-like
beam with the width of 5, the beam inclination angle
of 15 in the E-plane, the sidelobes level of -22 dB, null
depth of the difference pattern in the H-plane of - Fig. 6. Measured and simulated radiation pattern in
30 dB, the antenna gain of 29 dB and the VSWR of 1.2 E-plane.
or better in the bandwidth 16.75±0.25 GHz.
A SWA made of rectangular waveguides has been
selected in order to satisfy the above formulated re-
quirements. The antenna configuration is shown in
Fig. 5.
The antenna has a circular aperture and consists of
radiating and feeding layers. We use nonresonant feed-
ing waveguides to incline the antenna beam. However,
each radiating waveguide is a resonant device. The
antenna consists of two separate radiating semicircles,
and it is able to produce sum and difference patterns.
The phase distribution at the aperture should be spe-
cially selected in order to incline the antenna beam at a

Fig. 7. Measured and simulated radiation pattern in

H-plane.

Fig. 5. Antenna design (quarter of the antenna is

shown).
Fig. 8. Measured and simulated difference radiation
pattern in H-plane.

International Conference on Antenna Theory and Techniques, 6-9 October, 2009, Lviv, Ukraine 15
 Sekretarov S. S. and Vavriv D. M.
guides, whereas the second waveguide feeds the even tern are presented in Figs. 6, 7, and 8 respectively.
ones. A waveguide divider has been used to transmit Our analysis of the obtained results indicates that the
signals with specified amplitudes and phases into the target characteristics of the antenna have been
feeding waveguides achieved. The measurement results are in rather good
The synthesis of the aperture distribution is done by agreement with the simulated ones.
using the Taylor circular aperture distribution with
n  4 and the sidelobe level of -25 dB [7, 8]. The 4. WIDEBAND SWA FOR HIGH-RESOLUTION
synthesis procedure is similar to that described in [9]. SAR SYSTEMS
The energy method [3] is used to produce an initial
approximation for the resonant subarrays of the radiat- SWAs due to their planar form, strength of the con-
ing layer and the recurrence method [3] is used for the struction, and high efficiency are attractive candidates
nonresonant feeding subarrays to account mutual for applications in airborne and spaceborne SAR sys-
coupling via the fundamental mode of the rectangular tems. But the typical bandwidth of practical SWAs is
waveguide. usually of about few percents what limits their applica-
A compact waveguide comparator is designed to tions in high-resolution radars. Potential radar applica-
feed the both halves of the antenna via the pairs of the tions call for the bandwidth of about 10% and higher,
feeding waveguides. This comparator is based on a to achieve, for example, the spatial range resolution of
magic tee unit, and it contains a very compact wave- about 20 cm with X-band radars.
guide system. The magic tee unit is matched by means Recent studies [10]-[14] have demonstrated that
of a stepped post in the internal cavity of this unit and there are promising approaches to the extension of the
an iris in its difference channel. Parameters of these bandwidth of conventional resonant SWAs. We have
matching elements have been numerically optimized to studied these and some other approaches to the exten-
minimize the VSWR at the sum port. The VSWR at sion of the bandwidth of such type of antennas. These
this port is less than 1.09 in the operating frequency results are applied to the development of a novel X-
range of 500 MHz. The comparator combines the band SWA with the relative bandwidth of about 15%
halves of the antenna to produce the sum pattern with and with a 4°×6° antenna beam.
the inclined beam and the difference pattern in the H- It is well known that the bandwidth of such arrays is
plane. determined by both the resonant properties of individ-
The simulation of the complete structure of the an- ual slots and the bandwidth of the waveguide structure.
tenna has been performed. The structure contains both The frequency bandwidth of slots can be extended
radiating and feeding layers and the waveguide compa- by reducing the waveguide wall thickness and/or in-
rator. Results of the computer simulation of the antenna creasing the slot width. The application of slots of spe-
are presented in Figs. 6, 7, and 8. The designed antenna cial forms, e.g., dumbbell slots [11], is another way to
has been fabricated of aluminum. Milling, conductive- solve this problem. But such slots are hard-to-
epoxy bonding, and silver-plating technologies have manufacture and they provide a high level of cross-
been used in the fabrication process. A photo of the polarization components.
antenna is shown in Fig. 9. It should be also reminded that conventional longi-
The radiation pattern of the antenna has been meas- tudinal slots themselves demonstrate a rather large
ured. Sum pattern cuts in both E- and H-planes of the bandwidth under a proper choice of their parameters.
antenna along with a H-plane cut of the difference pat- Our simulations have shown that the bandwidth of
about 20% can be easily achieved.
In order to increase the bandwidth of a SWA, wide-
band waveguides are used and/or the antenna array is
divided on short sections (subarrays) with individual
feeding. The usage of broad rectangular waveguides is
the simplest way to extend the frequency bandwidth.
However, such waveguides are only useful in the case
of linear arrays. For planar arrays, this solution results
in the appearance of intensive grating lobes. Evidently,
the interelement spacing can be reduced by using di-
electrically filled waveguides, but this approach is not
too practical. Actually, the same factor limits the appli-
cation of wideband ridged waveguides [12], [14]. The
subarraying technique is considered now as the most
effective and preferable approach to the extension of
the antenna bandwidth.
A rectangular array of radiating slots has been se-
lected. Such aperture is separable one [7], so it is possi-
ble to use linear aperture distributions to form
Fig. 9. Photo of the designed antenna.

16 International Conference on Antenna Theory and Techniques, 6-9 October, 2009, Lviv, Ukraine
 Slotted Waveguide Antennas for Practical Radar Systems
independently the radiation pattern with different val-
ues of the beam width in the antenna principal planes.
The 20 dB Chebyshev amplitude distribution for linear
arrays has been used for this purpose. To realize such
distribution in the antenna aperture, the antenna is de-
signed in the manner shown in Fig. 10, where two
“building” blocks: Left and Right, from total 16 are
shown. There are two radiating subarrays in each block.
The wideband slots and the waveguide described
above have been used in the antenna design. The an-
tenna contains two main layers: radiating and feeding
ones (see Fig. 10). The radiating layer consists of 32
slotted subarrays with longitudinal slots (16 in each Fig. 11. The structure of the feeding network for the
half). A center-feed design is used here. The feeding of antenna half.
the radiating layers is organized by means of crossed
feeding arrays, which are coupled with radiating ones the antenna beam and growth of the side lobes. To re-
via inclined slots. The feeding arrays are end-fed, and duce these distortions, the phase shift should be mini-
the number of slots was selected to be equal two per mized. So, some compromise should be found for this
subarray. Due to the subarraing used, the feeding layer shift. In our case, this compromise value is 30°, when
has 16 individual inputs (8 in each half), and a feeding the VSWR is less than 1.4 in the operating frequency
network is assumed. band, and the distortions have acceptable values.
The feeding network for the 16 inputs of the anten- To validate the antenna design, an FDTD simula-
na feeding layer is of a parallel type based on matched tion of the complete antenna has been performed. The
E-plane T-junctions. It is organized identically for each simulation has confirmed that the beam of 4°×6° is
8 inputs of both antenna halves in the manner shown in formed. The antenna gain, calculated by taking into
Fig. 11. The feeding networks of the antenna halves are account the feeding network, in the operating frequency
joined by an additional E-plane T-junction. The distri- band is shown in Fig. 12. It is seen that the gain is
bution of the subarray feed amplitudes Ai (i=1, 2,…8) around 30 dB, and it has a small variations (±0.5 dB)
approximates the required aperture distribution, and the within the bandwidth of about 1.7 GHz.
 is a deliberately introduced phase shift. This phase Simulation results on the VSWR are illustrated in
shift is the sum of phase shifts in each branch of the Fig. 12. It is seen that this value is less than 1.4 in the
feeding tree (see Fig. 11). The phase distribution inside frequency band from 9.15 GHz to 10.85 GHz, which is
each block is constant. So, the phase is changed discon- larger as compared to the required frequency band. It
tinuously from one block to another. should be stressed that this result is due to the usage of
The reason for the introduction of the phase shift  the introduced phase shifts between the feeding blocks.
is as following. In the case of in-phase antenna feeding The phase shifts, as it was noted above, may cause
( reflections from the all inputs are summarized some antenna pattern distortions in the E-plane. This
and the overall VSWR can be high. In order to prevent pattern is shown in Fig. 13a for various values of the
this effect, we introduce this phase distortion in the frequency. It is seen that there is a beam inclination of
antenna E-plane phase distribution. To suppress com- about 3°, which slightly depends on the operating fre-
pletely the reflection and to achieve the ideal case of quency. The beam width in this plane is 4°.
VSWR=1, the phase shift should be equals 45°, which
is determined as 360° divided on the number of the
building blocks.
However, such phase shifts results in some distor-
tions of the antenna radiation pattern, like inclination of

Fig. 10. Two building blocks (Left and Right) of 16 Fig. 12. Gain and VSWR of the designed antenna
of the SWA with the matched feeding network vs. the
frequency.

International Conference on Antenna Theory and Techniques, 6-9 October, 2009, Lviv, Ukraine 17
 Sekretarov S. S. and Vavriv D. M.
cally Switchable, Ka-Band Slotted Waveguide An-
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other radar systems.

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18 International Conference on Antenna Theory and Techniques, 6-9 October, 2009, Lviv, Ukraine