Manifold Sensitivity Analysis of Frequency Diverse Array

Frequency diverse array (FDA) is an emerging array technique, its essential array characteristics and corresponding potential applications have not been well studied. As array manifold plays an essential role in various array applications, this letter presents an FDA manifold sensitivity framework to analyze the impact of element position uncertainties. Both absolute sensitivity and relative sensitivity are derived for the FDA. The manifold sensitivity analysis is suited for identifying the important position of each array element in an FDA antenna. Moreover, the overall sensitivity can be used to evaluate the robustness of an FDA configuration. All analytical manifold sensitivity characteristics are verified by numerical results.