Enhancement of Beam Width and Side Lobe Level Reduction Using PEC Ground Plane in Antenna Array

In this paper, the effect of perfect electric conductor (PEC) as a ground plane on antenna array is investigated. Vertical electric dipole which is of infinitesimal small length is considered as an array element. The effect of mutual coupling is neglected in this work. The effect of PEC as a ground plane is analyzed by considering two cases in this paper. Firstly, the array elements are kept at constant height above PEC and in second case, the array elements are kept with gradually increasing height above the ground plane. Performance of antenna array in presence of PEC for both cases is investigated in terms of main lobe beam width and side lobe level using array factor pattern. Side lobe level and beam width results are compared both in presence of PEC and without PEC i.e. array in free space. It has been observed that there is improvement in the main lobe beam width and reduction in side lobe level when the array is used with PEC as a ground plane with elements kept at gradually increasing height from the ground plane. In addition to this, overall directivity of the array is also found to be increasing exponentially with height on application of ground plane in comparison with that of antenna arrays without ground plane.