Pencil Beam Antenna
Figure 1: A beam „thin like a pencil”
Antennas that bundle extremely strongly in azimuth and elevation are often referred to as pencil beam antennas, although they do not actually form their own type of antenna. For example, the phased array antenna can emit a pencil beam “thin as a pencil”. Pencil beam antennas are used as target tracking radar. Real 3D radars like the RRP-117 also use pencil beams. In multi-function radar sets with digital antenna pattern formation, different pencil beams are formed simultaneously only on the receiving path, while at the transmitting moment, for example, a wide fan pattern illuminates all directions simultaneously.