A Review of Synthesis Techniques for Phased Antenna Arrays in Wireless Communications and Remote Sensing

Electronically controlled antenna arrays, such as reconfigurable and phased antenna arrays, are essential elements of high-frequency 5G communication hardware. These antenna arrays are aimed at delivering specified communication scenarios and channel characteristics in the mm-wave parts of the 5G spectrum. At the same time, several challenges are associated with the development of such antenna structures, and these challenges mainly originate from their intended mass production, contemporary manufacturing technologies, integration with active RF chains, compact size, dense circuitry, and limitations in postmanufacturing tuning. Consequently, 5G antenna array designers are presented with contradictory design requirements and constraints. Furthermore, these designers need to handle large numbers of designable parameters of the antenna array models, which can be computationally expensive, especially for repetitive and adaptive simulations that are required in design optimization and tuning. Antenna array synthesis, namely, the process of finding positions, orientation, and excitation of the array radiators, is a challenging yet crucial part of antenna array development. This process ensures that the performance requirements of the antenna array are met. Therefore, there is a need for reliable yet fast automated computer-aided design (CAD) and synthesis tools that can support the development of 5G antenna array solutions, from the initial prototyping stage to the final manufacturing tolerance analysis. This paper presents an overview of recent advances in antenna array synthesis from the viewpoint of their applicability to the design of electronically reconfigurable and phased antenna arrays for wireless communications and remote sensing.