A Self-Replicating Single-Shape Tiling Technique for the Design of Highly Modular Planar Phased Arrays-The Case of L-Shaped Rep-Tiles

The design of irregular planar phased arrays (PAs) characterized by a highly modular architecture is addressed. By exploiting the property of self-replicating tile shapes, also known as rep-tiles, the arising array layouts consist of tiles having different sizes, but equal shapes, all being generated by assembling a finite number of smaller and congruent copies of a single elementary building block. Toward this end, a deterministic optimization strategy is used so that the arising rep-tile arrangement of the planar PA is an optimal tradeoff between complexity, costs, and fitting of user-defined requirements on the radiated power pattern while guaranteeing the complete overlay of the array aperture. As a representative instance, such a synthesis method is applied to tile rectangular apertures with L-shaped tromino tiles. A set of representative results is reported for validation purposes but also to point out the possibility/effectiveness of the proposed approach, unlike state-of-the-art tiling techniques, to reliably handle large-size array apertures.

Automated summary

This study focuses on the design of irregular planar phased arrays with a modular architecture. It utilizes rep-tiles, self-replicating tile shapes, to generate array layouts consisting of tiles with different sizes but equal shapes. The use of deterministic optimization allows for the creation of an optimal tradeoff between complexity, costs, and the desired radiated power pattern while ensuring complete overlay of the array aperture. Results demonstrate the effectiveness of this approach in handling large-size array apertures compared to existing tiling techniques.