Investigation of Mutual Coupling in Vivaldi Antenna Arrays Installed in Airborne Radomes

The paper analyses mutual coupling in a two-dimensional Vivaldi antenna array installed in an airborne radome. The antennas' geometry, coaxial feed lines, ground plane and the radome cover are all sampled directly within a single time-domain numerical method based upon an unstructured mesh. The paper separates mutual coupling between array elements from the near field coupling between the array and the radome, and assesses how these each affect the radiation and transmission properties of the central element of the array.