Effects of variations in structural parameters on performance of switched parasitic arrays

Abstract

Influences of variations in the structural parameters (or antenna dimensions) of the five elements circular switched parasitic array (SPA) antenna at 2.4 GHz are investigated in this paper. Variations in the structural parameters are assumed to model random errors in such parameters. The effects of these variations on the performance of the SPA antenna are investigated using a numerical approach. Mutual coupling between the array elements is taken into consideration. The variations are modelled assuming both uniform and Gaussian distributions, and they are simulated using MATLAB. The simulation results demonstrated that variations in each structural parameter can either increase or decrease the SPA antenna gain and input impedance depending on the given specifications. The gain and input impedance sensitivities per unit variation in each structural parameter are computed to determine the level at which the gain and input impedance can vary for a small predefined change (or error) in the structural parameter.