Tolerance analysis of reconfigurable monopulse linear antenna arrays through interval arithmetic

Abstract

The tolerance of reconfigurable monopulse linear arrays on the uncertainties of the excitation amplitudes is analyzed with a method based on the rules of the interval arithmetic (IA) and analytic bounds for the sum and the difference power patterns are computed. Thanks to the reliability and the computational efficiency of such an IA-based formulation in deriving conservative and narrow pattern bounds, which include all possible pattern deviations, an innovative strategy is proposed for the worst-case performance analysis when dealing with tolerances on different parts of the beam forming network. Representative numerical examples both validate the formulation at hand and prove the effectiveness of the arising worst-case tool.

Keywords:

• Phased array
• monopulse radar
• reconfigurable antennas
• interval analysis
• interval arithmetic
• tolerance analysis

Acknowledgments

A. Massa wishes to thank E. Vico for her never-ending inspiration, support, guidance, and help.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work benefited from the networking activities carried out within the Project “CYBER-PHYSICAL ELECTROMAGNETIC VISION: Context-Aware Electromagnetic Sensing and Smart Reaction (EMvisioning) (Grant no. 2017HZJXSZ) funded by the Italian Ministry of Education, University, and Research under the PRIN2017 Program (Ministero dell’Istruzione, dell’Università e della Ricerca, CUP: E64I19002530001). Moreover, it benefited from the networking activities carried out within the Project “SPEED” (Grant No. 61721001) funded by National Science Foundation of China under the Chang-Jiang Visiting Professorship Program, the Project “Inversion Design Method of Structural Factors of Conformal Load-bearing Antenna Structure based on Desired EM Performance Interval” (Grant no. 2017HZJXSZ) funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, and the Project “Research on Uncertainty Factors and Propagation Mechanism of Conformal Loab-bearing Antenna Structure“ (Grant No. 2021JZD-003) funded by Shaanxi Provincial Science and Technology Department within the Program Natural Science Basic Research Plan in Shaanxi Province.