Omni-, Sector, and Adaptive Modes of Compact Array Antenna

Abstract

Three working modes, omni-, sector and adaptive modes, for a compact array antenna are introduced. The compact array antenna is an electronically steerable parasitic array radiator (Espar) antenna, which has only a single-port output, and carries out signal combination in space by electromagnetic mutual coupling among array elements. These features of the antenna significantly reduce its cost, size, complexity, and power consumption, and make it applicable to mobile user terminals. Signal processing algorithms are developed for the antenna. An omnipattern is given by an equal-voltage single-source power maximization algorithm. Six sector patterns are formed by a single-source power maximization algorithm. Adaptive patterns are obtained by a trained adaptive control algorithm and a blind adaptive control algorithm, respectively. The experiments verified the omnipattern, these six sector patterns and the adaptive patterns. It is hope that understanding of the antenna’s working modes will help researcher for a better design and control of array antennas for mobile user terminals.