Performance Analysis of Conformal Conical Array for Airborne Radar

Conformal arrays have great potential for providing high performance including wide angle coverage, volume saving and aerodynamic superiority. These potential benefits are attractive for the aircraft that has limited area available for radar installation and requires high radar performance. Conformal conical array is always chosen for its similarity to the aircraft nosecone. The goal of the study is to evaluate the airborne conformal conical array radar performance including anisotropy, beampattern, 3-d cover, power-aperture (PA) product. Numerical results show that the conical array has wider angle coverage and superior performance on PA product than the conventional planar array.