Need some information regarding antenna arrays..

hello everyone,
I am designing a uniformly spaced antenna array of same elements in which I want to use each antenna element smaller than its original dimension by applying the size reduction techniques like introducing slots, shortening pins etc etc.

My question is that what should be the inter element distance as the optimal distance for normal arrays must be less than or equal to half of lambda, but in this case if I take half lambda inter element distance, it will be too large as compared to size of single element.

please share your knowledge if any one knows about it?

Hi
U should looking for information in internet, key words " arrays atenna". Have lots of form about arrays antenna. U study about it and simulator it in software, and tuning about it in this software u using simulator. U using math caculator to find distance about it, and simulator it in software, and tuning about it.

Keep an open mind here. For some situations array element spacing greater than half wavelength might work well for you. Particularly if you are not scanning and have a large number of elements in the array. It sounds like your objective is to try to decrease the element size. You may not need to do so if the other conditions are right.

Ask yourself this question: If the number of elements in the array is fixed, what happens as the spacing is increased? Anticipate increasing gain for a while until the spacing reaches a "critical" value and then dramatically falls off.

It's not necessary to be half-wavelength. It depends on your designing objective.
You should perform the simulation to see what happen at various element spacing.
Generally, small spacing give a high gain pattern but, at some point, the array pattern is far worst than you can use.
The simulation will help you to find out what is the optimum space that fit your requirement.