Traditionally, antenna design involves optimizing the design parameters such as gain, minimum sidelobe level, scan range, half power beamwidth, for a particular application. Since 5G systems are pushing the boundaries for cellular communications by introducing unique challenges such as multiple beam antennas, beamforming etc. in the field of antenna design. Although separate studies do exist on these challenges, the concept antenna synthesis using different disciplines is relatively new. This work presents a 5G simulation model using a recently proposed hybrid beamforming technique employing cosecant power flux equalization in elevation plane with digital beamforming in azimuth plane. Various beamforming algorithms in azimuth domain are investigated for concurrent users sharing same frequency spectrum and their impact on system performance such as signal to interference plus noise ratio (SINR) is statistically analyzed. Moreover, the impact of antenna sidelobe levels on system SINR performance is investigated in detail. The simulation results shows that the cosecant subarray hybrid beamforming performs better than traditional hybrid beamforming in terms of SINR for cell edge users. In addition to that, this work provides a unique perspective to system engineers for intuitively analyzing the impact of antenna system on communication link and to derive design requirements that would be crucial in the antenna system synthesis

For radar applications, MIMO is often used. The problem is that the amount of available transmit- and receive channels is limited. If each channel is connected to a single antenna element, the effective aperture is small, and therefore the beamwidth is large and the angular resolution is limited. In this thesis, a novel scheme is proposed that circumvents this problem. More details are given in the full thesis. The result is an array that covers a reduced part of the visible space, with discrete beams that have improved beamwidth. The system gives the possibility to improve the angular resolution at the cost of field of view. A CST-model is made to verify this concept. In the specific example given in this thesis, the half-power beamwidth is improved from 8.4 degrees at broadside, to 5.7 degrees at broadside. At the same time the coverage is reduced from a theoretical ±90 degrees, to ±50 degrees.

The increasing number of drones forms a more significant problem every year. Negative impact becomes more apparent during daily life as, for example, airport operations are shut down due to unauthorized users of drones. This report focuses on designing a new wideband antenna array as part of an integrated radar system to detect small objects, such as drones or birds. The design is done by studying generic array design assuming uncoupled antenna elements with omnidirectional radiation patterns. A comparative study of possible antenna element types has been conducted, concluded with selecting the best candidate. An antenna array has been designed with the embedded antenna elements and is verified using a prototype. Finally, an additional enhancement using meta-materials is done in an attempt to improve the antenna’s performance further. A wideband patch antenna array is proposed, which achieves a verified impedance bandwidth of 0.90 GHz with a scanning capability of ±30 degrees in azimuth and ±15 degrees in elevation. The measurements verify what the simulations have shown at broadside. Also, simulations have shown that the impedance could be increased to 2.96 GHz if a smaller feeding pin is used. It is also demonstrated that an AMC ground plane doesn't improve the antenna's performance and is, therefore, not implemented.