Introduction to ARRSTATS - A Computer Program for Simulating the Effects of Errors in Time- and Phase- Steered Planar Array Antennas

摘要

A computer program is described that simulates time and phase steered array antennas subject to deterministic and random errors. The modeled array comprises a planar, rectangular grid of phase steered elements grouped hierarchically into time steered subarrays and time steered subapertures. Random phase, time, and amplitude errors may be assigned, and the phases and times may be quantized. The simulation frequency may differ from the design frequency. The program assesses the antenna's performance by computing and analyzing the far field radiation pattern or an ensemble of statistically identical patterns. It determines the location and power density of the main beam peak, the pointing error, the major and minor beam widths, the directivity, the ratio of main beam and sidelobe powers, and other measures. The program can tabulate measures as functions of a user specified independent variable such as the operating frequency, a steering angle, an error parameter, a quantization specification, or a parameter of the array geometry. Results may be displayed as textual output of the performance measures, plots of radiation patterns, and plots of performance measures versus the independent variable.