High Gain Printed Phased Array for SAR Applications Using Planar Electromagnetic Band-Gap Technology

This paper shows how the design of integrated arrays can significantly benefit from Planar Circularly Symmetric (PCS) Electromagnetic Band Gap (EBG) structures. Using this technology, a phased array that scans up to 40 in one dimension and that is characterized by relatively large bandwidth (BW ≈ 15%) is designed, manufactured and tested. The specific advantages coming from the use of PCS-EBGs are two fold. On one hand the losses associated to surface waves are significantly reduced. On the other hand each element of the array has a larger effective area that leads to a higher gain for the complete array when compared with a standard technology. Additional benefits are the low cross-polarization levels, the good front to back ratio, considering that the antenna does not include a backing reflector, and the low profile.