Design of Multifaceted Antenna Array with Flat-top Beamforming

A full hemispheric flat-top beam coverage is realized by using a ladder-staged multifaceted antenna array. The multifaceted array consists of 21 planar subarrays that are mounted on the ladder table, and each planar subarray consists of 5×5 E-shaped microstrip antenna element. Flat-top beam pattern towards the target zone is achieved by exciting the corresponding planar subarray where the excitation distribution is calculated by using the generalized maximum power transfer efficiency method. Results show that the flat-top beams realized by the zenith and side planar subarrays can both achieve 40° coverage in the latitude and longitude directions, and the realized gain are larger than 9.5dBi and 10.5dBi, respectively. A full hemispheric beam coverage is realized by exciting the planar subarrays at different times. The ladder-staged multifaceted antenna array is designed to operate in 2.4-2.5GHz band, and it has potential application in electronic jamming.