Design and implementation of a transceiver and a microstrip corporate feed for solid state x-band radar

Abstract

The design of a corporate feed for an X band frequency scanned microstrip antenna array and a surface mount transceiver are presented. The power distribution generated by the corporate feed network is based on a Taylor distribution to obtain an antenna sidelobe level below 20dB in the azimuth direction. The design of a surface mount transceiver is also presented as the first step in the evolution of the frequency scan antenna into an active antenna with electronic beam steering in the azimuth plane. This work is part of the development of a solid state radar for weather applications, constructed in collaboration with the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and sponsored by the NSF Collaborative Adaptive Sensing of the Atmosphere Engineering Research Center.