viewArray

View array geometry

Since R2021a

Syntax

viewArray(array)

viewArray(array,Name,Value)

hndl = viewArray(___)

Description

viewArray(array) displays the geometry of the array.

viewArray(array,Name,Value) displays the geometry of the array, with additional options specified by one or more Name,Value pair arguments.

hndl = viewArray(___) returns the handle of the array elements in the figure window. All input arguments described for the previous syntaxes also apply here.

Examples

Geometry and Indices of ULA Elements

Draw a 6-element ULA and use the 'ShowIndex' parameter to show the indices of the first and third elements.

array = phased.ULA(6);
viewArray(array,'ShowIndex',[1 3],'ShowNormals',true, ...
    'ShowLocalCoordinates',true,'Orientation',[60;100;45], ...
    'ShowAnnotation',true)

Geometry, Normal Directions, and Indices of URA Elements

This example shows how to display the element positions, normal directions, and indices for all elements of a 4-by-4 square URA.

ha = phased.URA(4);
viewArray(ha,'ShowNormals',true,'ShowIndex','All');

View Uniform Circular Array

Display the element positions and normal directions of all elements of an 8-element uniform circular array.

Create the uniform circular array

N = 8;
azang = (0:N-1)*360/N - 180;
ha = phased.ConformalArray(...
    'ElementPosition',[cosd(azang);sind(azang);zeros(1,N)],...
    'ElementNormal',[azang;zeros(1,N)]);

Display the positions and normal directions of the elements

viewArray(ha,'ShowNormals',true);

View UCA Array

Construct an 7-element UCA of isotropic antenna elements with a Taylor window taper. Design the array to have a radius of 0.5 meters. Then, draw the array showing the element normals, element indices, and element taper shading.

Nelem = 7;
R = 0.5;
taper = taylorwin(Nelem);
sArray = phased.UCA(Nelem,R,'Taper',taper.');
w = getTaper(sArray);
viewArray(sArray,'ShowNormals',true,'ShowIndex','All','ShowTaper',true);

Geometry of NR Rectangular Panel Array

Construct a 5G antenna array where the grid is 2-by-2 and each panel is 4-by-4 array. Each antenna element consists of two short-dipole antennas with different dipole axis directions. The antenna elements are spaced 1/2 wavelength apart and the panels are spaced 3 wavelengths apart. The array operates at 6 GHz.

c = physconst('LightSpeed');
fc = 6.0e9;
lambda = c/fc;
antenna1 = phased.ShortDipoleAntennaElement('AxisDirection','Z');
antenna2 = phased.ShortDipoleAntennaElement('AxisDirection','X');
array = phased.NRRectangularPanelArray('ElementSet', ...
    {antenna1, antenna2},'Size',[4, 4, 2, 2], ...
    'Spacing',[0.5*lambda,0.5*lambda,3*lambda,3*lambda]);
viewArray(array,'ShowNormals',true, ...
    'ShowLocalCoordinates',true,'Orientation',[60;100;45], ...
    'ShowAnnotation',true)

Geometry and Indices of Heterogeneous ULA Elements

Display the geometry of a 5-element heterogeneous ULA of cosine antenna elements, showing the indices for the first three elements.

sElement1 = phased.CosineAntennaElement('CosinePower',1.5);
sElement2 = phased.CosineAntennaElement('CosinePower',1.8);
sArray = phased.HeterogeneousULA(...
    'ElementSet',{sElement1,sElement2},...
    'ElementIndices',[1 2 2 2 1]);
viewArray(sArray,'ShowIndex',[1:3])

Geometry, Normal Directions, and Indices of Heterogeneous URA Elements

Display the element positions, normal directions, and indices for all elements of a 4-by-4 heterogeneous URA.

sElement1 = phased.CosineAntennaElement('CosinePower',1.5);
sElement2 = phased.CosineAntennaElement('CosinePower',1.8);
sArray = phased.HeterogeneousURA(...
    'ElementSet',{sElement1,sElement2},...
    'ElementIndices',[1 1 1 1; 1 2 2 1; 1 2 2 1; 1 1 1 1]);
viewArray(sArray,'ShowIndex','all','ShowNormals',true);

Array of Replicated Hexagonal Arrays on a Sphere

This example shows how to construct a full array by replicating subarrays.

Create a hexagonal array to use as a subarray.

Nmin = 9;
Nmax = 17;
dy = 0.5;
dz = 0.5*sin(pi/3);
rowlengths = [Nmin:Nmax Nmax-1:-1:Nmin];
numels_hex = sum(rowlengths);
stopvals = cumsum(rowlengths);
startvals = stopvals-rowlengths+1;
pos = zeros(3,numels_hex);
rowidx = 0;
for m = Nmin-Nmax:Nmax-Nmin
    rowidx = rowidx+1;
    idx = startvals(rowidx):stopvals(rowidx);
    pos(2,idx) = (-(rowlengths(rowidx)-1)/2:...
        (rowlengths(rowidx)-1)/2) * dy;
    pos(3,idx) = m*dz;
end
hexa = phased.ConformalArray('ElementPosition',pos,...
    'ElementNormal',zeros(2,numels_hex));

Arrange copies of the hexagonal array on a sphere.

radius = 9;
az = [-180 -180 -180 -120 -120 -60 -60   0  0  60 60 120 120 180];
el = [-90   -30   30  -30   30 -30  30 -30 30 -30 30 -30  30  90];
numsubarrays = size(az,2);
[x,y,z] = sph2cart(deg2rad(az),deg2rad(el),...
    radius*ones(1,numsubarrays));
ha = phased.ReplicatedSubarray('Subarray',hexa,...
    'Layout','Custom',...
    'SubarrayPosition',[x; y; z], ...
    'SubarrayNormal',[az; el]);

Display the geometry of the array, highlighting selected subarrays with different colors.

viewArray(ha,'ShowSubarray',3:2:13,...
    'Title','Hexagonal Subarrays on a Sphere');
view(0,90)

Highlight Overlapped Subarrays

Display the geometry of a uniform linear array having overlapped subarrays.

Create a 16-element ULA that has five 4-element subarrays. Some elements occur in more than one subarray.

h = phased.ULA(16);
ha = phased.PartitionedArray('Array',h,...
    'SubarraySelection',...
    [1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0;...
    0 0 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0;...
    0 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0;...
    0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0;...
    0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 1]);

Display the geometry of the array, highlighting all subarrays.

viewArray(ha);

Each color other than white represents a different subarray. White represents elements that occur in multiple subarrays.

Examine the overlapped subarrays by creating separate figures that highlight the first, second, and third subarrays. In each figure, dark blue represents the highlighted elements.

for idx = 1:3
    figure;
    viewArray(ha,'ShowSubarray',idx,...
        'Title',['Subarray #' num2str(idx)]);
end

Input Arguments

array — Phased array

System object™

Phased array, specified as a System object.

Name-Value Arguments

Specify optional pairs of arguments as Name1=Value1,...,NameN=ValueN, where Name is the argument name and Value is the corresponding value. Name-value arguments must appear after other arguments, but the order of the pairs does not matter.

Before R2021a, use commas to separate each name and value, and enclose Name in quotes.

Example: 'ShowNormals',true,'ShowIndex','All','ShowTaper',true

Parent — Handle to axes

real-valued scalar

Handle to the axes along which the array geometry is displayed.

ShowNormals — Option to show normal vectors

false (default) | true

Option to show normal directions, specified as the comma-separated pair consisting of 'ShowNormals' and a logical value.

• true — show the normal directions of all elements in the array

• false — plot the elements without showing normal directions

Example: false

Data Types: logical

ShowLocalCoordinates — Show local coordinates

true (default) | false

Logical flag specifying whether to show the local coordinate axes.

Data Types: logical

ShowAnnotation — Show aperture size and element spacing annotations

true (default) | false

Logical flag specifying whether to show the annotations in the UI panel of the figure. Annotation shows aperture size and element spacing based on array axis of array.

Data Types: logical

Orientation — Orientation of the array

[0;0;0] (default) | 3-by-1 column vector with real values

Orientation of the array, specified as a 3-by-1 column vector containing the rotation angles with respect to the x-, y-, and z-axes of the local coordinate system, respectively. The default value is [0;0;0].

Data Types: double

ShowTaper — Option to show taper magnitude

false (default) | true

Option to show taper magnitude, specified as the comma-separated pair consisting of 'ShowTaper' and a Boolean value.

• true — change the element color brightness in proportion to the element taper magnitude

• false — plot all elements using the same color

Example: true

Data Types: logical

ShowIndex — Element indices to show

'None' (default) | vector of positive integers | 'All'

Element indices to show in the figure, specified as the comma-separated pair consisting of 'ShowIndex' and a vector of positive integers. Each number in the vector must be an integer between 1 and the number of elements. To show all of indices of the array, specify 'All'. To suppress all indices, specify 'None'.

Example: [1,2,3]

Data Types: double

ShowSubarray — Subarray indices

'All' (default) | index valued vector

Vector specifying the indices of subarrays to highlight in the figure. Each number in the vector must be an integer between 1 and the number of subarrays. You can also specify the value 'All' to highlight all subarrays of the array or 'None' to suppress the subarray highlighting. The highlighting uses different colors for different subarrays, and white for elements that occur in multiple subarrays.

Dependencies

The ShowSubarray name-value pair can only be used for the phased.PartitionedArray and phased.ReplicatedSubarray System objects.

Data Types: double

Title — Plot title

'Array Geometry' (default) | character vector

Plot title, specified as a character vector.

Example: 'My array plot'

Data Types: char | string

Output Arguments

hndl — Handle of array elements plot

scalar

Handle of array elements plot in the figure window, returned as a scalar.

Version History

Introduced in R2021a