Publications
The application of taylor weighting, digital phase shifters, and digital attenuators to phased-array antennas
Application of Taylor weighting (taper) to an antenna aperture can achieve low peak sidelobes, but combining the Taylor weighting with quantized attenuators and phase shifters at each radiating element will impact the performance of a phased-array antenna. An examination of array performance is undertaken from the simple point of view of the characteristics of the array factor. Design rules and guidelines for determining the Taylor-weighting parameters, the number of bits required for the digital phase shifter, and the dynamic range and number of bits required for the digital attenuator are developed. For a radar application, when each element is fed directly from a transmit/receive module, the total power radiated by the array will be reduced as a result of the taper. Consequently, the issue of whether to apply the taper on both transmit and receive configurations, or only on the receive configuration is examined with respect to two-way sidelobe performance.