Determination of the phase center position and delay of a Vivaldi antenna

We propose a new method for the antenna phase center determination based on measurement. The phase center position and the delay of wave propagation through a Vivaldi antenna are estimated from the measured arrival-time of a multi-offset transmission signal. The estimated phase center position agrees well with that determined by a numerical simulation. The estimated delay has also been validated to have a good accuracy by a laboratory experiment. Then we demonstrate that the accuracy of the range distance estimation by a radar system using a Vivaldi antenna can greatly be improved by considering the phase center position.