A waveguide shunt slot-fed microstrip patch antenna (WGMPA) element is proposed and analyzed with method of moments (MOM) using entire-domain basis functions. The developed analysis has been utilized to obtain parametric observation of power-coupling versus transverse offset of feeding slot from the waveguide axis. Expressions for the radiation pattern as a summation of contributions of individual basis functions are reported. The proposed element is amenable to building-up series-fed linear arrays by a simple cascading of elements at the through-end of the feeding waveguide. The authors propose that arbitrary amplitude excitations may be applied to such linear arrays for desired tailored array pattern characteristics. The required transverse offsets for each array element may be computed using the reported parametric result. As a demonstration of concept, two distributions are designed – uniform amplitudes and Dolph–Chebyshev for reduced side lobes. Computed element patterns from MOM are used with an array factor formulation for arbitrary element positions. Both modules show radiation characteristics closely matching the expected directivity and sidelobe envelopes. Analysis validation is achieved using a proven finite element method (FEM)-based solver; the comparison is close and is reported. Efficacy of the waveguide shunt-slot fed patch element for building linear array modules with prescribed amplitude distributions is thus established.

This paper describes the design of high-performance compact aperture array antennas for radio astronomy and other applications. Three recent antenna developments for square kilometer array design study (SKADS) have been investigated and the performances are compared. In addition to the radio frequency (RF) performance, an essential requirement for the square kilometer array application is the cost per square area. Based on initial large–scale finite array studies, prototypes with different geometries have been fabricated and measured. Guidelines are derived for large–scale wide–band dual-polarized array designs in applications where low cross-polarization and a wide range of scan angles are required.