Content deleted Content added
mNo edit summary |
m typo fixed |
||
Line 20:
The thinned array curse means that synthesized apertures are useful for narrow-beam receivers, but are not useful for power transmitters. It also means that if an filled array has gaps between individual elements, the main lobe of the beam will lose an amount of power proprotional to the area of the gaps. Likewise, if a transmitter comprising multiple individual individual transmitters has subapertures which have fail, the power lost will not merely equal the power of the lost transmitter, but will also have an equal amount of power lost from the beam.
The thinned array curse has important consequences to concepts for [[Microwave power transmission]] and [[Wireless energy transfer]] such as design of a [[Solar power satellite]], in that it suggests that it is not possible to reduce the size of a receiver (or ''[[Rectenna]]'', for the case of microwave power beaming] by phasing together beams from many small satellites.
A short derivation of the thinned array curse, focussing on the implications for use of [[lasers]] to provide impulse for an interstellar probe (that is, an application of [[Beam-powered propulsion]], can be found in Robert Forward's paper "Roundtrip Interstellar Travel Using Laser Pushed LIghtsails<ref>Robert L. Forward, "Roundtrip Interstellar Travel Using Laser Pushed LIghtsails," ''J. Spacecraft and Rockets, Vol. 21,'' No. 2, Mar-Apr 1984, pp. 190.</ref>."
| |||