MEASUREMENT OF ELEMENT PATTERNS IN A CONFORMAL WING ARRAY

摘要

In this paper, techniques are presented for the measurement of element radiation patterns of a belt-like C-band conformal array of microstrip patch elements, which wraps completely around the cross-section of an aircraft wing. The element patterns were measured, in situ, then analyzed in terms of phase and amplitude ripple versus element location around the wing. These results indicated trends in interference due to the experimental environment and the geometry of the wing itself. Experiments were conducted which minimized interference effects due to the environment, resulting in the true element patterns in the presence of wing platform interference. In an effort to identify platform-induced interference, anechoic absorber was used to minimize pattern ripple attributed to the edges of the wing, enabling validation of the measured element patterns against simulated data, which did not include platform interference. Thus, determining whether to include the platform effects in the measured data is dependent on the intended use of the results.