On the complexity of randomly overlapped subarray feeding networks

In some applications there is the need of highly-directive antenna arrays scanning over a limited-field-of-view (LFOV) angular sector. As a matter of fact, being really bulky and costly, steering units and active components in the TX/RX chain cannot be employed at element level and their number is to be minimized as much as possible. Therefore, such radiating structures are usually realized by grouping the elements into several subarrays for reasons of cost and ease of manufacturing. This work investigates on the performance and the complexity of the physical implementation of the feeding network related to arrays organized into randomly-overlapped subarrays (ROSAs) in comparison to other technical solutions already presented in literature such as contiguous and uniformly-overlapped subarray feeds