Co-Design and Validation Approach for Beam-Steerable Phased Arrays of Active Antenna Elements With Integrated Power Amplifiers

An approach for designing a beam-steering active phased array of antenna elements with integrated power amplifiers (PAs) is presented. It based on an amplifying unit cell (AiUC) concept, where the AiUC comprises radiating slot element, GaN high-electron-mobility transistor (HEMT), its input matching, and dc biasing/feeding circuitry. The HEMT embedded in being directly impedance-matched to HEMT’s drain output, i.e., without using any intermediate potentially lossy impedance matching network. proposed co-design involves full-wave analysis passive part (naturally including mutual coupling effects) along subsequent full-system harmonic balance simulations. Furthermore, we extend standard definition scan element pattern (SEP) active SEP (ASEP) that accounts nonlinear effects PAs performance. We show ASEP is, general, power-dependent has different shape compared SEP. been demonstrated $K$ -band design example. was verified through waveguide simulator, which equivalent 23.7° H-plane case. Measurements are good agreement simulations, revealing 47% peak efficiency 33 dBm maximum radiated power. predicted range ±60° ±37° E- H-planes, respectively.