Optimizing High-Power Ultra-Wideband Combined Antennas for Maximum Radiation Within Finite Aperture Area

In this paper, the combined antenna array is developed to maximize the effective potential gain (Gep) within finite aperture area for the high-power ultra-wideband (UWB) radiation. The idea is to make the antenna element as small as possible, so that more elements can be arranged within the prescribed aperture area to maximize Gep of the UWB system. On the other hand, the antenna element should match the pulse excitation. This means that in the frequency domain, the working band of the antenna element should cover the spectrum of the radiated pulse, and in the time domain, critical parameters of the radiated field (e.g., rise time of the monopolar pulse) should not be distorted, and those can be the principles for the UWB antenna to match the pulsed excitation, based on which the minimum size of the antenna element can be determined. With this method, a four-element combined antenna array is designed. Also, an impedance transformer and power divider are designed to feed the antenna array. Also, a big combined antenna is developed with the same aperture dimensions (30 cm × 30 cm) as the antenna array. Then, the performances of the antenna array and the big antenna are measured and compared. Compared with the big antenna, G
_ep
of the antenna array is 21% higher under the applied excitation, which indicates that the proposed method can significantly improve G
_ep
of the UWB system within the prescribed aperture area. Finally, the antenna array is furthermore optimized by adjusting the distances between the elements, and Gep is improved by another 11%, the total improvement is 33%, and the corresponding effective potential gain is 1.49.