Slotted waveguide antennas.
Slotted waveguide arrays find wide application in radar and communication systems and have nowadays become a promising candidate for scanning antennas in multimedia satellite communication systems.
Since typical dimensions of such antennas are of the order of hundreds of radiating elements, the full-wave analysis methods today available, though computationally very efficient, cannot bear the effort of simulating the electromagnetic behaviour of the whole antenna.
The software SWAN is a powerful CAD tool for the design and analysis of very large slotted waveguide arrays having a wide range of capabilities: fixed or scanning beam, very low side lobe patterns, shaped beams such as cosecant or flat top patterns, etc.
SWAN characteristics
and performances:
- SWAN is fast, as it makes use of a rigorous equivalent circuit for the single slot obtained with an accurate full-wave analysis. The design and analysis of large arrays with thousands of slots can be easily carried out.
- SWAN is accurate, as internal and external mutual coupling effects and their dependence on frequency and scanning angle as well as dielectric and metal losses are rigorously taken into account. Feeding network and input transitions can also be considered.
- SWAN is flexible, as it allows for customizable waveguide dimensions, dielectric filling of the waveguides, many different feeding configurations, beam scanning optimizations, weighted aperture synthesis, etc. The software may be therefore useful in many applications.
SWAN features:
- User-friendly intuitive graphical interface
- Customizable waveguide dimensions
- Dielectric filling of the waveguides
- Resonant and traveling wave slotted waveguide arrays analysis and design
- Mutual coupling and wedge diffraction effects rigorously taken into account
- Beam-scanning arrays design and analysis
- Dielectric and metal losses considered
- Array layout exportable in DXF format
- Text and graphical outputs
SWAN: Graphical User Interface.
Easy to use.
SWAN software consists of three different tools that can be used independently for slot model computations, design and analysis of slotted waveguide arrays. Each tool has a different graphical interface, very intuitive and user-friendly.
SWAN: functional block diagram.
How to use SWAN.
From the antenna requirements a first dimensioning is carried out.
The slot model can be then extracted and used in the array design.
The optimized antenna can be then simulated to verify the achievable performances.