Study and development of a computer program for analysis of SAR planar array antennas

The development of a computer program TOPAS for analysis of planar array antennas, in particular synthetic aperture radar (SAR) antennas, is described. The program is divided into a number of modules, each of which can be used to analyze the antenna at a certain level. It was developed on a PRIME 300 minicomputer. The first calculates the realized element excitations; taking into account mutual coupling; the second module calculates the radiation pattern, taking into account possible degradations of the array. The third module presents the data in user oriented formats such as: theta-phi plots, u-v plots, isogain curves on the ground, along track and across track curves, and integrated side-lobe level.