A Wideband Wide-angle Scanning 1-D Microstrip Patch Array

Controlling the mutual coupling between array elements is one of the key problems in phased array designs. In this letter, a wideband decoupling network is proposed to suppress the mutual coupling between adjacent array elements. It is shown that the employment of the proposed network leads to a significant improvement of the operating bandwidth under the condition of maintaining a wide scan range, compared with conventional feeding techniques. In this manner, a 1 x 16 stack patch phased array prototype with the proposed decoupling network was fabricated. Measurement results agree well with simulated ones and indicate the effectiveness of the proposed approach in designing a wideband wide-angle scanning phased array.