Predicting Conformal Aperture Directivity for arbitrary Curved Surfaces: A comparison of Analytical and Measured Results

Conformal Antenna Arrays offer many advantages for aerospace platforms, especially if selected early in the platform design cycle. To this end a Conformal antenna array directivity equation is presented, allowing the benefits of a conformal antenna array to be explored and design trade-offs considered at an early stage. The Conformal Directivity equation is an extension of Hannan's equation for the maximum achievable directivity of a planar aperture within an infinite antenna array, and when compared to a uniform illumination model for a planar aperture for aperture areas above 0.5λ2 there is a maximum difference of 0.87dBi, and a mean difference of 0.49dBi.