Optimal Design of a Flat-Top Microstrip Antenna Array Based on the Method of Maximum Power Transmission Efficiency

Flat-top beams are widely used in modern communication systems due to their uniform power distribution and minimized gain variation over a designated coverage area. This paper presents the design of a flat-top beam-forming antenna system utilizing a series-fed microstrip patch array operating at 5.6 GHz. The proposed array consists of 16 series-fed microstrip antennas, each comprising 10 rectangular microstrip patch elements. To achieve low sidelobe levels, Dolph–Chebyshev amplitude weighting is applied to the series-fed microstrip patch design. To further enhance far-field performance, the Method of Maximum Power Transmission Efficiency (MMPTE) is implemented for the flat-top beam shaping. While 7 dipole receivers are introduced and positioned at angels █(θ={-30°,-20°,-10°,0°,10°,20°,30°}), simulated results demonstrate that the optimized distribution of excitation's produces a flat-top beam with a gain of 10.5 dBi, a gain fluctuation of 1.5 dB and a low sidelobe level below -25.6 dB. The proposed synthesis framework shows a state-of-the-art for beam shaping, and sidelobe suppression, and it has a great potential for wireless power transfer, radar systems and 5G smart communication infrastructures applications.