Ultrawideband, Dual-Polarized, High-Isolation Conformal Phase Array: Design and Implementation

A novel design and implementation of ultra-wideband dual-polarized cylindrical conformal phased array is presented with high isolation. Compared to the single-polarized counterpart, the elimination of common-mode resonance (CMR) becomes increasingly tricky in dual polarization due to the challenges in the complexity of the structure and conformal requirements. In this letter, a method of utilizing shorting lines is proposed to eliminate the CMR effect. It is also theoretically derived that the CMR can be removed, so that ultra-wideband dual-polarized radiation is realized with high isolation. Initially, an ultra-wideband dual-polarized planar infinite array is designed, in which shorting line loading is used to remove the CMR to ensure high polarization isolation within the ultra-wideband operation. Subsequently, an 8 × 8 conformal array is developed, which are mounted along a cylindrical surface with 200-mm curvature radius. Finally, due to the straightforward construction of the conformal array, an 8 × 8 conformal array prototype is fabricated and assembled. The measured results show it achieves an operating bandwidth of 3.7:1, with VSWR <3.0, polarization isolation >15.1 dB, antenna efficiency >74.0%, and ±60°/±45° E-/H-plane scanning with gain variation < 3.0 dB.