Sensitivity analysis of beam pointing angle of planar phased array antennas due to phase error of elements

Sensitivity analysis has been done in two-dimensional phased array antennas. Numerical methods of computing the beam pointing angle in these arrays has been investigated. The used numerical method has been validated by numerical computing the array factor and beam pointing angle if the array. Deviation of beam pointing angle due to phase deviation of each element of the array is computed and it is shown that the phase error of peripheral elements have more influence in beam pointing angle in two-dimensional arrays than the phase error of inner elements. This result is important because by knowing it we should phase the peripheral elements more accurately in comparison of phasing the inner elements. For example in choosing the phase shifters، we can use the more accurate and expensive ones for the peripheral elements and the phase shifters with lower accuracy and less expensive can be used for the inner elements which has less impact on beam pointing error.