Investigation on antenna coupling in pulsed arrays

Pulsed arrays are becoming popular in new ultrawide-band applications to achieve long-range coverage, high capacity and to identify the angle of arrival of multiple echoes in complex environments. As in the monochromatic regime, distortion of ultrawide-band transmitted and received signals can result from the coupling between individual radiators that are in close proximity. This paper investigates the time-domain coupling in finite arrays that radiate short pulses, by introducing the concept of time-domain "active" array factor and "active" element factor. The proposed model highlights the signal-distortion phenomenology and obtains useful guidelines to reduce pulse coupling, even in dense arrays, by a proper choice of the geometrical and electrical parameters.