Adaptive Antennas and Phased Arrays Course

Course Description
Adaptive antennas and phased arrays, with rapidly scanned beams or multiple beams, are commonly suggested for radar and communications systems in ground-based, airborne, and spaceborne applications that must function in the presence of jamming and other sources of interference.
This lecture series begins with a discussion of the fundamentals of adaptive antennas pertaining to radar and communications systems, with an emphasis on consumption of adaptive array degrees of freedom from the jammer's viewpoint. Displaced phase center antenna array mutual coupling effects in the problem of adaptive suppression of radar clutter is discussed in Lecture 2. Next, in Lectures 3 through 5 a theoretical foundation for a focused near-field technique that can be used to quantify the far-field adaptive nulling performance of a large aperture adaptive phased array system is described. Simulations of focused near-field and focused far-field nulling performance for adaptive arrays are presented for arrays of isotropic elements in Lecture 3 and for arrays including mutual coupling effects in Lectures 4 and 5. Experimental testing of the focused near-field adaptive nulling technique for phased arrays is described in Lecture 6. An experimental high-resolution multiple-beam adaptive-nulling antenna system is described in Lecture 7.
Lectures 8 through 16 then concentrate on phased array antenna development for a variety of array elements. Lecture 8 provides an introduction to phased array antenna theory. In Lecture 9, finite and infinite array analyses and measurements for periodic phased arrays of monopole elements are presented. Lecture 10 describes the focused near-field polarization characteristics of monopole phased arrays as related to adaptive array testing in the near field. Next, in Lecture 11 a test bed phased array that implements the displaced phase center antenna technique, as related to the analysis presented in Lecture 2, is described along with the planar near field testing technique that is used to assess adaptive clutter cancellation performance. The planar near field scanning method for measuring low-sidelobe radiation patterns of phased arrays is described in Lecture 12. Experimental arrays of horizontally polarized loop-fed slotted cylinder antennas (Lecture 13), dual-polarized dipole arrays (Lecture 14), and ultrawideband dipole arrays (Lecture 15) are described. In Lecture 16, rectangular waveguide arrays are analyzed by the method of moments.


Video lectures and lecture notes

1. Adaptive Antennas and Degrees of Freedom
2. Array Mutual Coupling Effects on Adaptive Radar Clutter Suppression
3. Focused Near-Field Techniques for Evaluating Adaptive Phased Arrays
4. Moment Method Analysis of Focused Near-Field Adaptive Nulling
5. Focused Near-Field Testing of Multiphase-Center Adaptive Array Radar Systems
6. Experimental Testing of Focused Near-Field Adaptive Nulling
7. Experimental Testing of High Resolution Nulling with a Multiple Beam Antenna
8. Phased Array Antennas - An Introduction
9. Monopole Phased Array Antenna Design, Analysis, and Measurements
10. Monopole Phased Array Field Characteristics in the Focused Near-Field Region
11. Displaced Phase Center Antenna Measurements Using Near-Field Scanning
12. Low-Sidelobe Phased Array Antenna Measurements Using Near-Field Scanning
13. Arrays of Horizontally Polarized Omnidirectional Elements
14. Finite Arrays of Crossed V-Dipole Elements
15. Experimental Ultrawideband Dipole Antenna Array
16. Finite Rectangular Waveguide Phased Arrays