Time-Modulated Beamforming in Antenna Arrays with Multiple Sub-Branch RF Switches

This paper presents a time-modulated beamforming technique in antenna array with multiple sub-branch RF switches. The proposed technique exhibits the attractive capability in the suppression of the unwanted harmonic components in RF channels before power delivered to antenna arrays. Moreover, without using digital phase shifters and digital attenuators, the first positive harmonic component is utilized to realize scanning beams with low sidelobe levels (SLL). A 16-element isotropic linear array is utilized for numerical analysis. The scanning beam with less than -20.0 dB sideband levels (SBL) is achieved with uniform excitations, while it exhibits -30.0 dB SLL and less than -25.0 dB SBL with the Dolph Chebyshev distribution.