A study of edge effects in triangular grid tapered-slot arrays using coupling coefficients

Edge effects for tapered-slot elements in triangular grid array antennas are studied by using finite difference time domain codes. The S parameters for finite-by-infinite arrays are computed and evaluated for two different edge models and, to evaluate the edge effects, the results are compared with the S parameters for the infinite array. As expected, the largest difference between the results occurs for the elements closest to the edges, because of the missing coupling from nearby elements and the perturbed element currents due to the edge geometry. By using the proposed method it is possible to distinguish between these two edge effects. A method to combine the finite-by-infinite array results and the infinite array results is presented and used to characterize the perturbation caused by the truncation of the infinite array.