AIRBORNE zyxwvutsr RADAR ANTENNA MODULES USING LIGHTWEIGHT TEMPERATURE-RESISTANT MATERIALS Pawel Kabacikt, Krzysztof Sachset, Andrzej Sawickit, Grzegorz Jaworskit and Marek E. Bialkowski* Inst. of Telecommunications zyxwvuts & Acoustics, Wroclaw University of Technology, 50-370 Wroclaw, Poland, Computer Science & Electrical Eng. Dept., University of Queensland, St Lucia, Qld zyxwv 4072, Brisbane, Australia E-mail: zyxwvuts pawel@zr.ita.pwr.wroc.pl E-mail: meb@csee.uq.edu.au ABSTRACT In contemporary radar technology, increasingly complex antennas must maintain a low weight requirement and provide suMicient robustness to a harsh environment. Among many desired features, a high degree of antenna integration and the ability to incorporate the design into a plane’s fuselage or wings are of the highest priority. In order to meet such demands, advanced power dividing and phasing networks together with digital signal processors should be located close to the transmitting and receiving antennas preferably in multi-layer architectures. Such architectures put stringent requirements on electrical and mechanical properties of dielectric substrates. This paper presents some results concerning the design and development of multi-layer antenna elements and the associated signal dividing and phasing networks using honeycomb and quartz-fibre composite materials, which are widely used in the aerospace industry. I. INTRODUCTION In contemporary radar antenna technology, smart zyxwvu antennas have gained a great deal of attention due to their capability of supporting complex functions of radar. Their role is to produce directional beams towards moving or stationary targets using specially developed scanning algorithms. In order to perform the role of “smart beam forming” these antennas require a large number of elements - usually densely packed. For easy deployment, the radiating and processing modules should preferably be accomplished in lightweight highly reliable integrated technology and should be easy to maintain. Thus if any of the sub-modules fail, this technology should allow easy repair, replacement or an adaptive failure correction. These requirements motivate investigations of planar or conformal array technologies to build such antenna systems. Of the many possible planar technologies, the microstrip patch technology seems to be most suitable for the manufacture of radiating layers [ 11. For reasons of technological compatibility, the use of multi-layer microstrip technology for the construction of other high frequency components, such as power dividing and phasing networks, is a logical choice. Although easy to propose, microstrip technology faces challenges in the present application. One problem is that for many of the available substrates electrical properties change excessively when subjected to temperature variations which are unavoidable in airborne radar. One cause is a fast varying environment and the other is the heat from the beamforming modules. In our recent paper [2], classes of available microwave materials have been proposed for a limited set of dielectrics whose electrical parameters are resistant to temperature changes. The purpose of the present paper is to demonstrate the practical use of these materials to develop antenna elements integrated with power dividing/phasing networks for possible use in airborne radar. 0-7803-6345-O/OO/$lO.OO zyxwvutsrqp 0 2000 IEEE 41