An Improved Architecture of Polarimetric Phased Array Radars for Enhanced Transmitting Performance

Alternately transmitting and simultaneously receiving (ATSR) and simultaneously transmitting and simultaneously receiving (STSR) are the two most commonly used polarization modes for polarimetric phased array radars (PPAR). Conventional array architectures are designed strictly according to these two modes, which limits the full utilization of the hardware resources. This paper proposes an improved architecture of PPAR, which exhibits enhanced transmitting performance with more economical structures. Although the amount of active components is equal to the conventional ATSR architecture, both ATSR and STSR polarization modes can be flexibly supported. The results of simulation experiments proved that compared to the conventional ones the proposed architecture has advantages in the cross-polarization suppression for the ATSR mode and the cost reduction for the STSR mode.