Decoupling efficiency of a wideband Vivaldi focal plane array feeding a reflector antenna

A focal plane array (FPA) feeding a reflector can be used to achieve a large field of view (FOV) with overlapping simultaneous beams. In order to provide a continuous FOV over more than an octave bandwidth, the inter-element spacing in the FPA has to be electrically small over large parts of the band. This will inevitably result in strong mutual coupling effects between the array elements. On transmit, the total lost power due to mutual coupling can be quantified by the decoupling efficiency, a term recently introduced for antenna arrays. This paper presents measured decoupling efficiencies of a Vivaldi element FPA operating between 2.3 and 7 GHz. The radiation patterns of the FPA are calculated for two beam excitations by using measured embedded dement patterns, and the corresponding decoupling efficiencies are evaluated by using measured S-parameters between all element ports. The FPA is assumed to illuminate a deep reflector with F/D = 0.35, and the overall reflector aperture efficiencies are computed. The decoupling efficiencies are also determined through the measurements of the total radiation efficiencies in a reverberation chamber, which includes material absorption losses. Index Terms--Antenna array feed, aperture efficiency, decoupling efficiency, mutual coupling, radiation efficiency, tapered slot antenna array.