Daniel R Richards

Nonuniformly Spaced Array Elements Daniel R Richards

Publisher Marketing: This thesis provides a method to reduce physical resource requirements along with cost reduction in Space Based Radar (SBR) platforms, and provides a rule of thumb for randomization effects on arrays. A trend analysis is performed on 4, 8, 12, and 16 square meter arrays. Three aperiodic thinning approaches are examined. They are an equal current density element distribution, a random periodic grid of elements, and random element distribution based a peak sidelobe indicator. According to the metrics used, the statistical and deterministic array thinning approaches performed best for these small arrays. However, the statistical arrays have a scan angle limitation of OO=30 due to the interelement spacing of two wavelengths. The deterministic does poorly with peak sidelobes. The random array performance was limited due to the relatively small array sizes for the random approach used. The small size limits the array's capability to meet the peak sidelobe threshold requirement, due to a reduced confidence level, along with limiting the effective area to be randomized. However, as the array size increased, the thinning levels and performance increased to become competitive with the other array approaches. If trends continue as array size increases, the random array is the ideal solution.