64 IEEE TRANSACTIONS
1, JANUARY 1974
Design of a Small Conformal Array
GARY A. THIELE
Abstract-Theprincipal objective of this investigation was to
determine how to efficiently excite a small conical body over a 2: 1
frequency bandwidth such that a prescribed minimum value of gain
is exceeded in a 60' conical sector about the forward axis of the cone.
T o achieve the necessary bandwidth, two approaches have been
considered. First, an electrically small moderately efficient tunable
antenna can be employed to excite currents on the cone. Second,one
can employ a wide-band antenna having at least a 2: 1 bandwidth.
Tbis latter approach was investigated theoretically and found to be
feasible but experimental confirmation was not attempted in defer-
ence to the firstapproachthat has the potential of greater gain
(efficiency). To demonstrate the validity of the first approach a four
element conical array was constructed and is described in this paper.
Experimental results agreed well with theoretical expectations.
I. INTRODUCTION
ASMALL conical body is a difficult geonlet,ry to excite
so that it radiates effectively on or near the forward
axis of the cone. Let us consider a cone havinga O.lh
dia.meter base anda 0.5h long generat.or (slant height)
at. t.he lowend of a 2: 1band, gain greater than 10 d B below
isotropic in a conical sector 60" about the forward axis
and a capability for receiving any polarization. Thus we
must consider a conical body whose generatorvaries
from about 0.5h to 1.Oh and whose base diameter varies
from about 0 . l h to 0.2h.
To achieve the necessary bandwidth, two approaches
may be pursued.First, anelectrically small and moderately
efficient ant,enna may be employed to excite currents on
the cone such that, some direct,ivity in the forward direc-
tion is obtained. Such an antenna will naturally have a
narrow instantaneous bandwidth, but may be tuned over
the required 2: 1 band.One pot,cnt.ial antenna for this
purpose is themultiturn loop antenna (MTL) which
will be discussed in Section 1V. Potential array configura-
tions mill be evaluated in Section 111. The term array is
not meant to imply t.he conventional type of array (e.g.,
h / 2 element spacing) but rather a special type of array
designed to obtain a novel performance.
A second approach is t o use an antennahaving a t least
a 2 : l bandwidth. Since the cone is not. very large elec-
trically,frequencyindependent antennas such as the
conical spiral cannot easily be used. Thus onc must
ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL.AP-22, NO.
AND CHENG DONN
resort to appropriate loading to achieve the required
bandwidth. An antenna configuration that shows promise
based on theoretical analysis is an array of six half-loops
on the cone generator, each terminated in a complex load
chosen to give an array input impedancesuch that a
VSWR of less than 3: 1 is maintained over the 2: 1 band.
This array mill be briefly discussed in Section 111; details
of this array may be found in[l].
To investigateandevaluatethemerits of the many
various conformal array configurations employing either
of the abovetwoapproaches,one would nornlally be
forced to resort to an extensiveseries of experimental
models and measurements since a n analytical evaluation
of such a problem is virtually impossible. In the following
sections, we will obtain, via modern numerical methods,
two sound engineering designs to a difficult problem. These
results should be of interesttoothers concerned with
radiationcharacteristics of conical bodies. In addit-ion,
t,he procedureused to arriveat these designs is sufficiently
general to be of interest to engineers concerned with other
small array problems.
S m m ~CONFORMAL
11. MODELING ARRAY
To facilitate the computer study for the evaluation of
thesetwo a.pproaches onecanemploy the concept of
wire-grid modeling [2>[6] to model t.he cone and it,s
radiat,ing elementsfor computer analysis. Such a procedure
is ideally suited for bodies that are not electrically large,
such as the cone of interesthere, since onecan obtain
accurate patterns, directivity and/or gain and impedance
data that takes into account all mutual coupling effects
including coupling to the metallic body itself.
T o properly model a small confornlal array it is neces-
sary to nlodel the surface of the body, which in this case
is conical, as well as the radiating elements. A representa-
tive model is s h o r n in Fig. 1.
The currents on each of the wires in the model are
represented by an appropriate basisfunction.Here, we
will use the piecewise-sinusoidal function although other
functions could be used to obtain the s m e end result at
the possible expense of increased computer running time
and/or storage requirements. We can write forthe current
density J"
with I , = I(Zn)and d, the length of segment n. P,(I) is a
 THIELE AKD D O K N : S U L L CONFORMAL ARRAY 65

0.5X- l.OX

Fig. 1. Wire-grid computer model.

unit pulse, nonzero only on segmentn; g, is a unit vector

F
pointing dong 1 from one endpoint of segment n to the
other. Thc basis currents vanish at t,he endpoints of the
dipoles. Further details may be found in [3], [4].
I n setting up such a model as that of Fig. 1, onc can
generally use the guideline that the maximum separation
between opposite sides of the wire mesh should notexceed
0.2X. Such a guideline is not rigid, however. A complc-
mentary guideline is that a sufficient number of wires
be used such that the true surface current is adequately
sampled and the geometry adequately described by the
model. Using such guidelines, one can usually arrive at a 0.5X- I.Oh
valid model without appreciable difficulty. Howcver, this
is not always thecase as we will see in Section V.
Clearly, such a modeling procedure is limited by com-
puter storage capability to bodies that are not large in
terms of the wavelength such as the cone of interest in
F
this paper. Thus while the technique is a very powerful
one, its practical usefulness is limited to small confornlal
arrays.

111. INVESTIGATION
OF VARIOUS ARRAY CONFIGURATIONS
1 NOSE DIRECTION
+ =+,
[ 8 - 180°. )

t A . T u d k Antenna Element
Using the MTL as a tunable excitor of the metallic
surfaceconical body, several array codguratiom were
investigated. These arc shown in Fig. 2 where, in the com-
puter model, the MTLs arc adequately represented [l]
by simple half-loops as indicated in Fig. 1.
b
To avoid deep nulls on or near the forward axis, it is
necessary to phase the MTLs such that there is a phase
progression of 2~ radians around the cone. E'or example,
for the array in Fig. 2(b), each of the MTLs is phased
120"ahead of or behind the adjacentNTL. In a feasibility
Fig. 2. (a) Multiturn loop array on composite cone. (b) Array of
three multiturn loops on cune generator. (c) Array of six mult.i-
turn loops on cone generator.
model it is moredcsirablc to employ four MTLs with
90" phase progression due to the commcrcial availability
of 90" and 180"hybrids. However, it shou!d be noted that
120" hybrids can be designed and manufactured.
Typical pattern rcsults computcd at the low and high
ends of the 2: 1 band are shown in Fig. 3 for t.wo of the
array configurations in Fig. 2. Thc configuration in iGg.
2(a) produced asymmetries in the patterns that deemed
66 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON AXTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, JANUARY 1974

180.

(d)
Fig. 3. (a) Normalized patterns at low end of band for m a y of Fig. 2 (b). (b) Normalized patterns at high
end of band for array of Fig. 2 (b). (c) Normalized patterns at low end of band for array of Fig. 2 (c). (d) Nor-
malized patterns at high end of band for array of Fig. 2 (e).

this array configuration not well-stiited for our purposes. of Fig. 2 ( b ) would be nluch simpler than for the array of
The patterns in Fig. 3, however, are well-suited. I n fact., Fig. 2(c).
the pattern at the low end of the band in Fig.3 (e) exhibits Fig. 4 shows the theoretical gains in the forward axial
desired directivity in t,he forn-a.rd axial direction. Thus it direction referenced to isotropic for the three array con-
would appear that the array of Fig. 2 ( c > would be the figurations. It is appaxent that, the arrayof Fig. 2 ( b ) will
best configuration to employ inafeasibility nlodel if require MTL elements that are more efficient than would
radiationpatterns were t.he sole criterion. However, it be required for t.he more complex array of Fig. 2(c). In
was judged that the array of Fig. 2 ( b ) would be preferable t.he trade off of simplicity versus efficiency it was deter-
primarilydue to the space 1imit.ations on t.he cone. I n mined that a tunable MTL element was needed for the
addition the tuning and feeding problenls for t,he array array of Fig. 3(b) where efficiency was a t least 10 percent.
THIELE A S D D O K N : SNALL C O N F O R U L ARRAY 67

"1
-20
I
h-++
3 - M T L ' S ON T H E BASE
SURFACES OF T H E
TRUNCATED COMPOSITE lo
CONE

5%

-
I
- -
- -
3-MTL'S ON THE
CONESURFACE

a - 100%

a -EFFICIENCY

f m
5%

u -20u
.e- 10i i
6 - Y T L ' S ON T H E

7
CONE SURFACE

a - loox
40%

5%

2f
FREQUENCY

Fig. 4. Gains for multiturn loop arrays in Fig. 3.

at. thelow end of t.he 2 :1 band. Since t.he realizat,ion of such 0

0.93f
I I I
1.33f
I I
l.6f
I I I
2f
a n element is not easy, let us next briefly exanline the FREQUENCY
alternative possibility of using abroad-band antenna Fig. 5 . Efficiency of MTL in Fig. 7.
element.
B. Broad-Band Antenna Element
A second approach t o obtainingexcitation of small
conical bodies is to employ antenna elements having a t
least a 2: 1 bandwidth. Since frequency independent ele-
ments cannot.readilybeemployed, an alternat.ive is t o
use an element loaded sufficient.ly to achieve the required
bandn7idt.h. One possible elementisa half-loop with a
conlplex 1oa.d impedance at the end opposite the input.
I n comparing the array using a tunable element- and
that, using a broad-band element such as the loaded half-
loop it mas decided that a feasibi1it.y model of the former
would be preferableover tha.t of the latter forseveral
reasons [l]. First., it. appeared t.hat more gain could be
obtained using the t.unable element and, second, t,hat the
tunable element could be more easily flush mounted.
Sext., let us examine the characteristics of the tunable I
-8
RITL element. I
I
-9 I
11.'. C H A R A C T E R I S T I C SO FEFFICIENT
h,IULTITURN I331
FREOUENCY
1.671 2f

LOOPELEMENT
Fig. 6. Measured gain of MTL in Fig. 7.
The efficiency of the MTL chosen for the array was
measured by t,he Wheeler cap method [7]. The method is
based on the relationship conducting radian sphere mill then be Eloss.Such measure-
ments are easily accomplished withanetworkanalyzer
Rrad such as the HP8.2104 and a test set up similar to t.hat
9 = (2)
R r d i-
RIO~ in [SI.
The efficiency of the MTL elementmeasuredby the
where
cap method is shown in Fig. 5. At t.he low end of t.he 2: 1
q = efficiency
band of interest, it is evident from the curve that the
&ad = radiat.ion resist,ance efficiency is above t.he 10 percent goal, being 13.5 percent
a t f and not. falling to 10 percent until the frequency has
RI,,, = loss resistance.
decreased t,o about 0.9 f. To verify the general validity of
Since the real portion ( R r a d +
Rloss)of the antenna input the efficiency measurement, gain measurements were con-
inlpedanceradiatinginfreespace is easily det,ermined, ducted a t t,he indoor antenna t.est facilit,y of the USAF
the problem then is t,o find either R r a d or I z l o s s . Wheeler Avionics Laborat,ory, Wright.-Patterson AFB, Ohio. The
suggests that a conduct.ing sphere equal to or greater tha.n results of t,hese nleasurernents are shown in Fig. 6. The
about one-sixth wavelength in radius(i.e., a radian sphere) gain measurements were made with the MTL in a 20' X
will eliminate R r a d without significantly changing Rloss. 20' ground plane. Since the gainmeasurements mere
Clearly this assumes no significant change in t.he antenna conducted with the MTLin a ground plane approximately
current diatribut,ion t,akes place. The measurement of the ten t.inles larger than tjhat,used for the cap met.hod, it is
input impedance when theantennais erlclosed by t.he not too surprising t o find the gain measurements indicat-
68 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON A N ~ N N A S AND PROPAGA~ON, JANUARY 1974

Fig. 7. 4 element conical array.

t
ing that theefficiency increases with frequency at a fast,er
rate than the capmethodmeasurenlent,sindicate. It is
quite int.erest.ingto note thecorrelation between the shape
1
of the efficiency curve (Fig. 5) in the 1.7 f to 1.8 f region
with the corresponding portion of t,he gain curve (Fig. 6 ) .
It is conceivablc that some of the other pert.urbations in
the efficiency curve would be discernible in the gain curve,
had finer incren~ents infrequency been used to construct it.
Considerablecontroversy exist.s concerning how large
an efficiency canbeobt,ained with an electrically sn~all
antenna.. The JITL used to obt.ain the preceding data was
a two turn model like that in Fig. 7 wherein each element
could be enclosed in a sphere whose diameter varies from
only about, 0.OGX to 0.12X. Certainly the antenna is elec-
trically small. The efficiency data for this ant.enna show
that, indeed, moderately high (e.g., GO percent,) efficiencies
canbeobtainedwith an elect,rica.lly small radiating
element,.

V. MEASURENENTS OF CONFORMAL
FOUR-ELEXENT ARRAY
A . Pattern Measurements
Fig. 7 shows a photograph of t,he cone with four NTLs
mount.ed around t.hc cone such that the cent,er of each of
the A.ITI,s is about 0.1X from the base of, the cone a t
frequency f.
T o obt,a.in t.he 2~ radian phase progression, a hybrid
feed arrangenlent, consisting of 90" and 180" hybrids was
employed. The insertion loss of this system was typically
0.4 dB. Neasured a.nd calculated far-field patterns for t,he
four element array areshown in Figs.8 ( a ) and (b). These
pat.tcrns were measured outdoors with the cone mounted
on a 6' high styrofoarn support, which in turn placed the
cone approximately 12' above the ground. A small trans-
mitter was placed inside the cone to avoid t,he effects of
cables being attached externally. The calculations were
madewith the wire-grid cone model of Fig. 1 and the
result,s agree very well withthe nleasurements ans evi-
denced by t.he patterns in Figs. 8(a) and (b).
One unexpected difficulty in modelling the MTL array
on the cone was encount.ered in that t.he null in t,he E,
pattern in Fig. 8 ( b ) was not predicted if simple half-loops
nlount.ed on the surface andprotruding above it were Fig. 8. (a) Far-field pattern at frequencyf. (b) Far-field pattern
at frequency 2f.
used t o model t.he MTL. It was found that half-loops re-
cessed as indicated in Fig. 1 corresponding to thesituat,ion
Qictured in Fig. 7 were necessary to predict the null near erliance upon nleasurenlents nude in the presence of the
broadside. earth, it was decided that gain measurements would also
be made with the cone mounted on the 20' X 20' ground
B. Cain Meamrenzents plane of the indoor pattern range at Wright-Patterson
Gainlueasurements a,t the VHF-UHF frequencies of A4FB.By conlputing the appropriate conversion factor,
concern here are not easily made. In an effort, to avoid the gain nleasurement with the cone on the ground plane
THIELE AKD DONN: SN14LL COSFORMAL A R U F 69

TABLE I - LOOPA MEAS LOOP B DETUNED LOOPS

E . C S D kERMlNATED I N T 0 ’ 5 0 n
--- LOOP A MEAS.: LOOP C DETUNED;LOOP
B , C B D TERMINATED INTO 5 0 a
Frequency Y (dB) -*- INPUTTOHYBRIDFEEDSYSTEMYEAS.;
LOOP A DETUNED
MTLINPUTIMPEDANCE ON CONE. ALL 4
1.00 f -0.25 LOOPS INITIALLY TUNED TO FREQUENCY I
1.07.f -0.40
1.17 f -1.45
1.33 f -2.20

1
-
=
I
X OUTDhOR MEASUREMENT
CONE
GROUND
ON PLANE MEAS.+

Fig. 10. Mutual coupling effects at frequency f.

1, and nlultiplying t.his direct,ivity by t,he efficiency data

given in Fig. 6. Such a procedure implies that the in-
dividual elements have the same efficiency in their cone
mounted configuration (Fig. 7) as in the groundplane
codgurat.ion. It would appear from the various data in
Fig. 9 that this is true.
- 10f I
1.33f 1.67f 2f
The third setof data in Fig. 9 was derived from outdoor
FREQUENCY measurements wherein a half-wave dipole was used as a
Fig. 9. Free-space gain on forward axis of cone. reference. Due t.o the presence of the ground thesemeasure-
ments are probably t.he least. reliable of the three sets of
would then be convert.ed toits free-space equivalent. data.Atthe lower three frequencies theyindicate a
This is accomplished as follows. reasonable gain consist.ent,lyless than that derived by the
Utilizing the wire-grid model of Fig. 1 extended t o ot,her two methods.A t 2 f data is not shown since the out-
include the image of the cone in an infinit.? ground plane door nxasurement indicated a gain which was unreason-
one can comput,e, for example, t.he magnitude of the f a r - ably high.
zone elect>ricfield on t,hefonmrd axis of the cone Eimage I n all cases t.he gain was determined after proper al-
By comparing it to the same quant.ity computed utilizing lowance for the insertion loss of the hybrid fecd system.
the free-spa.ce cone model shown in Fig. 1 wit.h t,he same The gain in d B was determined from t.he directive gain
input, powcr, one cancompute Efree-space and hence, the relationship
conversion factor y, where G d = 10 log,, g d ( 8 , 4 ) (4)
Efree-Epae ase
?l/2 = (3 1 where
E i m a s e case ’

The success of such a procedure obviously depends upon

reasonably good agreement,between the measured pat-
terns with the cone on t,he 20’ X 20’ ground plane and
those ca.lculated with the cone on an infiniteground
plane. Good agreement was obtained from f t.0 1.4 f but
not from 1.6 f to 2 f since t.he overall elect.rica1 sizeof the
model is exceeding t.he high frequency limit whereaccurate
resultscanbeexpected. Consequent.ly onlythose con-
version factors fromf to 1.4 f are listed in Table I.
The corresponding values for the gain measured with
the cone on the ground plane and then correct.ed to the
free-space equivalent are showninFig. 9. Reasonably
good agreement, with the ot,hcr t.mo methods of determin-
ing the gain in Fig. 9 is in evidence.
Also shown in Fig. 9 is a curve obtained by ta.king the
calculated directivity, using t,he conlputer model of Fig.
Or, in other words, the directive gain ga in a given direc-
t.ion is the ratio of the radiation intensity 17 in that direc-
tion to the average radiated power W B . I n our case the
direction of interest has been the forward axis of the cone
where the polarization is circular, being either RCP or
LCP depending on the direction of the 2a radian progres-
sive phasing.
C. Mutual Coupling Efeets
When four antennas are placed in close proximity such
as those in Fig. 7, mutual coupling can be expected to be
strong. I n order to give some indication of the effects of
this coupling, the data in Fig. 10 were t.aken at. f which
is a worst case since coupling effects tendto diminish
70 IEEE TRANSACTIONS
ANDON ANTENNAS PROPAGATIOW, JANUARY 1974

somewhat a.s frequency is increa.sed. The first curve in eEciency of the elements tobedeterminedprior tothe Y

the figure represents the change in the input impedance construction of an experimental model. In the case of
of loop A when loop B is detuned with loops B, C,and D the broadband elementsgain could be determined directly
terminated into 50 Q loads. This effect is relatively small. since theactualelements could be well representedin the 1.
The second curve represents the change ininput impedance model and the loss taken to be that introduced by the
of loop A when the opposite loop (loop C ) is detuned. real part of the load impedance.
Thiseffect is somewhatgreater than the previousone While the technique used
these
in investigations
is -t

since the coupling via the cone currents to the opposite restricted to structures not generally muchlarger than
loop is apparently stronger than the field coupling to an the cone considered here, it is a useful procedure in engi-
adjacent loop. Finally, the third curve in Fig. 10 shows neering investigat,ions of variousproblemssuch asthe
the variation in the input to the hybrid feed system when small conformal array in this paper.
one loop isdetuned. As with the other curves, the greatest
change occurs when a loop is slightly detuned since the ACKNOWLEDGMENT A

MTLs are high Q elements. The effect of a detuned ele- Theauthors mould like to acknowledge the antenna
ment on t,he radiation patternswas not investigated. group of the USAFAvionics Laboratory at Wright-Patter-
son AFB for their fine cooperation. The contributions of t
VI. STJ;~~MARY AND CONCLUSIONS R. A. Sutherland to the MTL antenna development, and
T o briefly summarize thesigrdicantresults of this also the discussions withProf. C. H. WalterandProf.
invest.igation, several conclusions can be made. First, the J. H. Richmond,
are sincerely appreciated. c

desired pattern coverageover a A60” foma.rd section REFERENCES

can be achieved by exciting a metallic surface cone with an
array of elements being fed in a phase progression of 2a
radians around thecone.
Second, an electrically small antenna element such as
the mult,iturn loop can be designed so that it is tunable
over a 2: 1 band and is efficient enough to produce the
necesmry value of ga.in in a forward sector f60” about
the cone axis. The MTLelenlent used to demonstrate these
characteristics was passively tuned with low loss trimmer
capacitors.
Third, the modeling technique discussed in Section 11,
can be used to predict the performance of a small confornlal
array on a body that. is not large in the electrical sense.
It was used in Section I11 to investigate various possible
array configurations and locationsfor the WTL elements.
Whilegaincould notbedetermineddirectly since the
actual fi,€TLelements could not be modeled on the cone,
directivity calculations permittedthe nlinimunl acceptable
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