A Partially Driven Array Antenna Backed by a Reflector with a Reduction in the Number of Driven Elements by Up to 67%

This paper describes a novel technique to replace some of the driven elements in an array antenna with parasitic elements. First, the antenna characteristics are studied by simulation for a basic unit array with one driven and two parasitic elements. The entire antenna is backed with a flat reflector to conform to practical applications. The parasitic elements are excited by the neighboring driven elements through the electromagnetic coupling effect. It is shown that at the optimal coupling condition, the radiation patterns are almost identical with those of an array antenna whose elements are all driven without coupling. The simulation result is confirmed by performing an experiment at 5.8 GHz (lambda = 51.7 mm). Finally, a 12-element array is formed by combining four unit arrays. The simulation results show that the maximum antenna gain is 19.4 dBi, indicating that there is no penalty with respect to the antenna gain of a fully driven 12-element array. Therefore, the array antenna can be considerably simplified by replacing 67% of its elements with parasitic elements.