Isophoric Array Antennas With a Low Number of Control Points: A `Size Tapered' Solution

We propose a new architecture for array antennas able to achieve a high-gain performance by using a low number of elements and uniform-amplitude excitations. The solution is realized through a fast and deterministic design technique able to accurately emulate, by exploiting only the feeds' size as degree of freedom of the synthesis, 'ideal' continuous aperture sources fulfllling at best the assigned directivity requirements. The given theory is supported by numerical examples concerning the synthesis of isophoric direct radiating arrays devoted to a multibeam coverage of Europe from a geostationary satellite.