Rigorous Electromagnetic/Circuit-Level Analysis of Time-Modulated Linear Arrays

The paper demonstrates for the first time an integrated circuit-level/electromagnetic approach to the analysis of time-modulated linear arrays. We developed a multi-domain CAD platform combining rigorous Harmonic Balance-based analysis of the nonlinear switches with the electromagnetic characterization of the radiating elements. This allows a full-wave computation of the radiated far field envelope which is used to display the array behavior. The resulting simulation tool allows a rigorous evalua-tion of some nonlinear performance aspects of the radiating sys-tem such as the power-handling capabilities and the switch modulation frequency limit. Several examples with different switch modulation patterns are presented in order to demon-strate the effectiveness of the tool. Simplifying assumptions typical of previous approaches are overcome in this way, while keeping computational time at levels suitable for nonlinear optimization