IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 62, NO.

4, APRIL 2014 1731

Novel Parasitic Micro Strip Arrays for Low-Cost
Active Phased Array Applications
Shi-Wei Qu, Senior Member, IEEE, De-Jun He, Shiwen Yang, Senior Member, IEEE, and Zaiping Nie, Fellow, IEEE
AbstractIn this paper, a novel idea is proposed to construct
low-cost phased arrays by using the multi-port property of array
elements. The operating principles are illustrated and explained
in detail. A three-element patch subarray with a periodic lattice
is conceived according to the proposed idea. In the subarray, one
patch antenna with multiple ports is designed as an active element
which is directly fed through the excitation port by a feeding net-
work. The other two parasitic patches are fed by the coupling ports
of the active element. Good agreements between simulations and
measurements of a two-subarray phased array prototype success-
fully verify the proposed idea. Then, comparisons to a conventional
phased array are performed to highlight its advantages, e.g., high
aperture efciency and low cost. Finally, a second design example
is given for more references.
Index TermsAntenna arrays, microstrip antennas, mutual
coupling, sparse arrays, thinned arrays.
I. INTRODUCTION
P
HASED ARRAYs (PAs) are extensively applied to a va-
riety of communication systems due to their many supe-
riorities, e.g., abilities of very rapid beam scanning and multi-
beam forming. They can be roughly classied into two cate-
gories according to their architectures, i.e., passive and active
PAs. Generally, the former is fed by a source with very high
output power, which is then delivered to each element by a quite
complicated feeding network with a large power loss. Compar-
atively, in a typical active PA, RF signals to each element are in-
dividually amplied or generated by a high-power amplier or a
signal generator in every transmitting/receiving (T/R) module.
Therefore, the high power loss in the feeding network can be
substantially reduced.
The active PAs present many merits compared to their pas-
sive counterparts, e.g., low noise gure, more exibility for dif-
ferent kinds of applications and multi-functionality [1]. How-
ever, the extremely high cost, mainly caused by a large number
of T/R modules, prohibits their extensive practical applications.
Another essential factor is the quite small space between array
Manuscript received August 15, 2012; revised February 26, 2013; accepted
May 01, 2013. Date of publication May 07, 2013; date of current version April
03, 2014. This work was supported in part by the Natural Science Foundation of
China (NSFC) Projects under 61371051, 61101036, 61125104, and 61231001,
and in part by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities
under ZYGX2010J028.
The authors are with the School of Electronic Engineering, University of
Electronic Science and Technology of China (UESTC), Chengdu 611731, China
(e-mail: dyon.qu@gmail.com).
Color versions of one or more of the gures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identier 10.1109/TAP.2013.2262071
elements which makes installation of the T/R modules trouble-
some, especially in millimeter wave bands.
To solve these problems, some compromised array architec-
tures are proposed, in which the T/R modules are adopted only
at the subarray level. But losses in the power dividers or com-
biners in front of T/R modules are still signicant. Another ar-
chitecture based on similar idea is studied, i.e., the PAs with
overlapped sub arrays for a limited eld of view [2], [3]. In the
arrays, the T/R modules and phase shifters are also employed
only at the subarray level, and thus much fewer control compo-
nents are required. However, complicated interconnecting net-
works following the array elements are necessary in these re-
ports, and their noticeable loss and an extra cost are still critical
problems. In [4], the interconnecting network can be removed
by using interleaved sub arrays, but it results in a denser element
distribution in the array aperture and a strong mutual coupling.
Aperiodic sparse or thinned PAs provide another way to
solve the problems mentioned above, and fewer elements are
required over the same aperture compared to the conventional
closely spaced fully-fed ones. Theoretically, a low side lobe
level (SLL) and phased beams can also be obtained by op-
timizing position and excitation of each element. Generally,
some complicated methods are required for optimizations,
e.g., particle swarm optimization [5], convex optimization [6],
Bayesian compressive sampling [7], matrix pencil method
[8], and cross-entropy method [9]. Unfortunately, if a periodic
lattice is applied to the thinned array, as we all know, problems
like small scan angle or appearance of grating lobes will defeat
the array design.
It can be seen that most of the array architectures introduced
above are proposed from the array viewpoints. It is assumed
that all elements are identical and isolated, or there is just a uni-
form mutual coupling between them. Therefore, investigations
on the differences exhibited by different array elements were
not given. This work is focused on constructing novel array ar-
chitectures for low-cost active PA applications, based on con-
siderations from the element point of view. The new subarray,
with a periodic lattice, is composed of a multi-port element [10]
and a few parasitic ones. The former can be used as both a ra-
diator and a multi-way power divider to simplify the feeding
network, and the parasitic elements can be indirectly fed by the
power divider. By this way, the total feeding power can be
redistributed in terms of amplitude and phase over the whole
subarray aperture in a desired manner. The proposed idea is
demonstrated by two phased patch arrays, and the advantages
are highlighted by comparisons.
0018-926X 2013 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
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1732 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 62, NO. 4, APRIL 2014
Fig. 1. Multi-port antenna equivalent to a network with one feeding port, one
radiation port and coupling ports.
II. DEMONSTRATION OF PROPOSED IDEA
A. Multi-Port Antenna
As introduced in [10], the coupling among non-orthogonal
ports is a fundamental problem in multi-port antennas. It means
that if the antenna is considered as a multi-port network, the
power fed from one port will be partly delivered to the radiation
and the other feeding ports. Therefore, the structure can func-
tion as an antenna for radiation as well as a power divider,
as shown in Fig. 1. In the network with ports, , , and
are the incident and the reected waves at the excitation
and the radiation ports, respectively. The left are the coupling
ports in the multi-port antenna, to which the power will be partly
delivered from the excitation port, similar to a special power di-
vider. By properly constructing the antenna, the dividing ratio
of the power divider can be accurately designed. Then, a new
subarray can be conceived based on the equivalent network of
the multi-port antenna called the active element. When para-
sitic elements are connected to it with an arbitrary inter-element
spacing, they can be fed by the power divider. Based on the
conceived subarray, a PAwith fewer active elements can be built
for a high aperture efciency and gain, but its cost can be sig-
nicantly reduced due to the simplied feeding network.
B. Demonstration of Proposed Array
Practical implementation of the proposed idea is numerically
and experimentally demonstrated by a phased patch array. In
this paper, all simulations were performed by Ansoft High
Frequency Structure Simulator (HFSS), commercial software
based on the nite-element method (FEM). Fig. 2 shows a
subarray to build a low-cost phased patch array. It consists
of an active patch (central) and two parasitic ones with equal
dimensions , denoted by Patches and . In Fig. 2(a),
the patches are etched on the top layer of the rst substrate
with thickness and a relative permittivity 2.2. A feeding
network and two phase shifters are placed on the bottom layer
of the second substrate with thickness and the same relative
permittivity. A ground plane shared by the patch elements and
the feeding network is clipped between the two substrates, and
there are six circular holes with a diameter through which the
posts and probes are passed.
In Fig. 2(b), three identical patches with a length and a
width are placed by a distance , i.e., about at the
designed frequency. The active patch is differentially fed by two
Fig. 2. Geometry of the proposed subarray, differentially fed by two probes
through the feeding network on the bottom layer. , ,
, , , , , , , , and
(in millimeters). (a) Side view; (b) top view; (c) active element.
probes with a separation for a symmetrical current distribu-
tion [12]. A pair of posts on the active patch is placed along the
-axis by a distance to couple a desired part of power to the
parasitic patches. The coupled power is delivered by two micro
strip lines with a width , and the phase can be tuned by each
phase shifter for a desired phase distribution on each parasitic
patch. Another pair of posts is symmetrically put on the para-
sitic patches, and the post locations are identical to those of the
corresponding ones on the active patch. Meanwhile, all posts
and probes share the same diameter .
In the subarray, two xed phase shifters realized by the left-
handed cells are adopted, and their designs can be referenced
to [13]. Either an advanced or a retarded phase of the currents
on the parasitic patches can be obtained by tuning their phase
shifts. The differential feeding network in Fig. 2(b) is composed
of a Wilkinson power divider and matching circuits. Its design
is easy and straightforward as long as the input impedance is
known. The differential feeding mechanism is realized by a
micro strip line with an extra length of one half guided wave-
length at the design frequency.
According to the electric eld distributions under the patch,
it is easy to understand that the post position determines the
desired ratio and the phase shift of the ve-port power divider
equivalent by the active patch. Four ports of the active element
are shown in Fig. 2(c) (The radiation port is not shown). The
reference planes A and B of Ports 3 and 4 are aligned to the
radiating edges, and those of Ports 1 and 2 are set to be at a short
QU et al.: NOVEL PARASITIC MICRO STRIP ARRAYS FOR LOW-COST ACTIVE PHASED ARRAY APPLICATIONS 1733
Fig. 3. Simulated reection and coupling coefcients of the network excited
by differential signals from Ports 1 and 2. (a) Magnitude of the reection and
coupling coefcients in decibels. (b) Real and imaginary parts of the coupling
coefcients. (c) Real and imaginary parts of the reection coefcients.
distance from the probe. Property of the network in Fig. 2(c)
can be calculated by the scattering matrix, in which actually
, and denote the coupled power to Ports
3 and 4, and is the radiated power. Meanwhile, and
are equal in amplitude and out-of-phase due to the differential
feeding mechanism.
After a brief calculation, the coupling coefcients and
at Ports 3 and 4 are shown as follows along with the active
reection coefcients and at Ports 1 and 2:
(1)
The simulated results of , , , and are shown in Fig. 3.
Since Ports 1 and 2 in Fig. 2(c) are not matched, the simulated
and , equal in amplitude but out of phase, are 5.9 dB at
Fig. 4. Simulated directivity patterns of (a) the proposed subarray and (b) the
PA with ve sub arrays at 4.6 GHz.
the designed 4.6 GHz. and , also equal in amplitude and
out of phase, are 9.1 dB at 4.6 GHz. It means that one third of
the input power through the differential port is radiated, and the
left two thirds are equally delivered to the coupling ports.
The simulated phases of the coupling coefcients to Ports
3 and 4 are approximately , respectively. Note that the
two patches are symmetrically placed with respect to the active
patch, and therefore much attention should be paid to calculate
the two left-handed phase shifters for a desired phase distribu-
tion on the parasitic patches. The simulated reection coefcient
of the parasitic patch at the reference plane C are below 15 dB
at 4.6 GHz, meaning that the coupled power can be effectively
delivered to both patches and radiated into the free space.
Simulated directivity patterns of the subarray and a PA with
5 sub arrays are show in Fig. 4. Since all patches in the subarray
are fed with equal amplitude and a phase step , a side
lobe of 9.8 dB can be seen at from Fig. 4(a) and
the main beam is pointed at with a deep null at
. It is actually the cost paid for high aperture efciency
and also one of the reasons limiting the scan angle of the PA.
However, the SLL can be reduced by tapering the amplitude of
the electric eld at the subarray or full array level. In Fig. 4(b),
the progressive phase step of ve sub arrays in the PA is set to
be along the -axis, and the inter-subarray distance is set
to be . Therefore, the PA can be considered as a
uniformly excited periodic one with 15 elements. The results
are calculated through multiplying the subarray pattern by the
array factor. It can be seen that the PA can be scanned from
1734 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 62, NO. 4, APRIL 2014
Fig. 5. Photographs and the results of the fabricated PA prototype. (a) Top
view. (b) Bottom view. (c) Simulated and measured reection coefcients. (d)
Simulated and measured radiation patterns at 4.6 GHz.
13 to 30 with a 1.6-dB directivity
variation, and the maximumSLL is below 9.6 dB. Meanwhile,
the side lobes in the right side of the main beam are always
below 11.7 dB.
After a careful design procedure by HFSS, a smaller PA
with two sub arrays is fabricated for verication purpose.
Photographs of the fabricated array prototype are shown in
Fig. 5(a) and (b). For good mechanical strength, it is placed
on a C-shaped aluminum ground plane. Only two of six
patches are directly fed by the feeding network. The phase
Fig. 6. Comparisons in terms of (a) directivity and (b) radiation patterns be-
tween the proposed and the referenced PAs.
step between the neighboring sub arrays is
realized by a micro-strip line with an extra length as shown in
Fig. 5(b).==
The reection coefcienct of the prototype was measured by
Agilent network analyzer E5071C-480, as shown in Fig. 5(c).
Discrepancies between simulations and measurements are at-
tributed to the errors of fabrication and installation of each com-
ponent in the prototype. The simulated and measured co-polar-
ization gain patterns are shown in Fig. 5(d), where good agree-
ments between them with respect to the main beams, nulls, and
side lobes can also be observed. The main beam is pointed at
, with a measured and a simulated gain of 13.04 and
13.38 dBi, respectively. Meanwhile, the antenna efciency is
around 70% due to the power loss in the feeding network and
the phase shifters. The measured maximum SLL is 10.74 dB,
very close to the simulated 11.05 dB.
C. Comparison
To highlight advantages of the proposed idea, comparisons
between the proposed and a referenced PA are performed in
terms of directivity, SLL, gain and cost. The referenced array
consists of six differentially fed patch elements with
identical inter-element spacing to the proposed one. For easy
comparison, all feeding networks are removed and the direc-
tivity is calculated at the condition of the same scan angle.
Fig. 6(a) gives directivities of the two PAs. It can be seen that
they present a similar directivity at the operating frequency, ex-
cept the directivity bandwidth of the proposed one is slightly
narrower. Fig. 6(b) shows radiation patterns of the two arrays.
There is negligible difference about the main beams, and the
QU et al.: NOVEL PARASITIC MICRO STRIP ARRAYS FOR LOW-COST ACTIVE PHASED ARRAY APPLICATIONS 1735
Fig. 7. Geometry of the proposed second type of subarray, also differentially
fed by two probes. , , , , , ,
, , , , , , and (in
millimeters). (a) Side view; (b) top view.
maximum SLL of the proposed one is only 1.4 dB higher. How-
ever, the referenced PA should be fed by a feeding network
with 6 output ports, which is generally realized by cascading
one two-way and two three-way power dividers. Generally, two
kinds of the well-designed power dividers feature reasonable in-
sertion losses of 0.2 0.4 dB and 0.3 0.5 dB, respectively.
Therefore, the realized gain of the proposed array will be about
1 dB higher than that of the referenced one. For a large PA, the
gain improvement would be more noticeable.
Obviously, the total cost of the proposed array is also lower
due to fewer power dividers in the feeding network. Although
they need the same number of phase shifters, only one third of
front ends are required for the proposed PA. Meanwhile, com-
pared to the reported PAs with a limited scan angle [2], [3],
the proposed subarray structure is signicantly simplied by re-
moving the interconnecting networks. Additionally, a potential
application of the proposed idea is for wide-scan systems if the
xed phase shifters between the active and the parasitic patches
are replaced by the variables.
III. SECOND DESIGN EXAMPLE
Fig. 7 shows the second design example, i.e., a low-cost PA
with . The top and bottom layers are two substrates with
an identical relative dielectric constant 2.2, and the middle layer
is an aluminum ground plane for good mechanical strength. On
the top layer of the rst substrate, an active (right) and a par-
asitic patch (left) are placed by a distance . The active patch
is also differentially fed by two probes, and a pair of posts is
placed along the -axis by a distance in this subarray. Simi-
larly, another pair of posts is symmetrically put on the parasitic
patch.
Two pairs of posts along the -axis are connected by two
identical coupling structures with two xed left-handed phase
Fig. 8. E-plane directivity patterns of (a) the second kind of subarray and (b)
the corresponding PA with ve sub arrays at 4.8 GHz.
shifters. The coupling structures and the feeding network are
placed on the bottom layer of the second substrate, as shown in
Fig. 7(b), to remove the undesired radiation into the upper half
space. After the same investigation procedure to calculate power
ratio and phase shift of the power divider, the post position
can be determined. Then, the two phase shifters can be designed
according to the desired phase distribution of the currents on the
parasitic patch. Design of the feeding network is also identical
to the rst kind of subarray in Section II-B.
In this demonstrating subarray, the currents on the parasitic
patch are designed to be equal in amplitude but advanced by
in phase relative to those on the active patch. The
simulated directivity pattern of the subarray at 4.8 GHz is given
in Fig. 8(a). The main beam of the subarray is pointed at
, and a side lobe located at is 10.5 dB below
the main beam. The directivity patterns of a periodic PA with
5 sub arrays and an inter-subarray spacing of at 4.8 GHz
is shown in Fig. 8(b). As the phase step between
the neighboring sub arrays is changed from 60 to 235 , the
main beam of the array can be scanned from to
with a maximum SLL of 9.7 dB, and the directivity variation
is smaller than 1.3 dB.
Also for verication purpose, a four-subarray PAis fabricated
with the phase step along the + -axis. The simu-
lated and measured reection coefcients are below 14 dB
in 4.7 4.9 GHz. It should be noted that the operating fre-
quency of the PA is slightly shifted downwards due to the in-
troduced errors by fabrications and installations. Therefore, the
1736 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 62, NO. 4, APRIL 2014
Fig. 9. Simulated and measured radiation patterns of the second PA.
measured co-polarization gain pattern at 4.7 GHz is given in
Fig. 9. The measured main beam, pointed along is
slightly widened, and the measured rst side lobes are devi-
ated from simulations by 1 2 dB. The measured array gain
is 13.05 dBi at the interested frequency 4.7 GHz, slightly lower
than the simulated 13.31 dBi.
IV. CONCLUSION
A new method to construct low-cost PAs is proposed in this
paper from the element point of view. The multi-port charac-
teristics of the array element are used to serve as not only a ra-
diator but also a power divider in the feeding network, which
obviously reduces the cost and complexity of the array system
as well as the power loss in the feeding network. Then the pro-
posed method is veried by two demonstrating PAs. It can not
only be used in the phased micro strip arrays, but in those with
other type of elements. For example, dipole or slot elements are
also suitable candidates as long as a specic multi-port structure
is conceived.
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Shi-Wei Qu (S08M11SM12) was born in
Henan province, China, in October, 1980. He
received the B.Eng. and M.Sci. degrees from the
University of Electronic Science and Technology of
China (UESTC), Chengdu, China in 2001 and 2006,
respectively, and the Ph.D. degree from the City
University of Hong Kong (CityU), Hong Kong, in
2009.
He is currently an Associate Professor with the
School of Electronic Engineering, UESTC. From
2009 to 2010, he worked as a COE (Global Center of
Excellence) Research Fellow and a Postdoctoral Fellow at Tohoku University,
Sendai, Japan. From 2001 to 2002, he worked for the 10th Institute of Chinese
Information Industry. From 2006 to 2007, he was a Research Assistant at
the Department of Electronic Engineering, City University of Hong Kong.
He has authored or coauthored over 30 internationally referred papers and
over 20 international conference papers. From 2007 to 2010, he published his
researches about UWB bowtie antennas and cavity-backed bowtie antennas
in seven papers in IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION.
His research interests include UWB antennas and arrays, phased arrays, and
millimeter-wave antennas and arrays, etc.
De-Jun He was born in Shandong Province, China,
in 1986. He received the B.S. degree in communi-
cation engineering from Qufu Normal University,
Shandong Province, China, in 2010. He is currently
pursuing the M.S. degree in the electronics and
communication engineering from the University
of Electronic Science and Technology of China
(UESTC), Chengdu, China.
His research interests include antennas and arrays.
Shiwen Yang (M00SM04) received the B.Sc. de-
gree in electronic science from East China Normal
University, Shanghai, China, the M.Eng. degree in
electromagnetics and microwave technology and the
Ph.D. degree in physical electronics fromthe Univer-
sity of Electronic Science and Technology of China
(UESTC), Chengdu, China, in 1989, 1992, and 1998,
respectively.
He is currently a Full Professor with the De-
partment of Microwave Engineering, School of
Electronic Engineering, University of Electronic
Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, P.R. China. From 1994 to 1998,
he was a Lecturer at the Institute of High Energy Electronics, UESTC. From
1998 to 2001, He was a Research Fellow at the School of Electrical and Elec-
tronic Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He joined
the Temasek Laboratories, National University of Singapore, as a Research
Scientist in 2002. His research interests include antennas, antennas arrays, and
computational electromagnetics.
QU et al.: NOVEL PARASITIC MICRO STRIP ARRAYS FOR LOW-COST ACTIVE PHASED ARRAY APPLICATIONS 1737
Zaiping Nie (SM96F12) was born in Xian,
China, in 1946. He received the B.S. degree in radio
engineering and the M.S. degree in electromagnetic
eld and microwave technology from the Chengdu
Institute of Radio Engineering (now University
of Electronic Science and Technology of China,
UESTC), Chengdu, China, in 1968 and 1981,
respectively.
Currently, he is a Professor with the Department
of Electromagnetic Engineering, UESTC. From1987
to 1989, he was a Visiting Scholar with the Electro-
magnetics Laboratory, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL, USA. He is an author
or coauthor of over 300 journal papers. His research interests include compu-
tational electromagnetics and its applications, antenna theory and techniques,
electromagnetic scattering and inverse scattering, eld and waves in inhomoge-
neous media, etc.