Abstract

In this paper, an electrical model is developed to represent the input admittance of an antenna array with a finite number of elements. This model consists of an RLC bock component to represent the input admittance of each elementary antenna element and a capacity component to represent different degrees of antenna coupling effects. The equations based on cavity model are developed to represent physical meaning of each model. Numerical results show that good accuracy for the simulation results can be obtained by using this electrical model to the results obtained by using HFSS. As the array is large and sparse, a very small amount of computation can yield good accuracy. This model is shown not only to be numerically efficient compared to the full wave analysis using the moment method, but also to give physical insight into the antenna array mutual coupling mechanism. Furthermore, this model has no limitation on antenna array geometry and excitation.

Key words: Antenna array, electrical model, coupling capacity.