ArRaydiate is an interactive program in JavaScript to aid in understanding radiation patterns of antenna arrays. It produces a 2D visualization of a radiation pattern for a linear antenna array of up to 10 elements. The direction of radiation for the main beam(s) can be steered by changing the phase difference. The beamwidth of the main lobe and the quantity of grating (smaller) lobes are affected by changing the element spacing (lower spacing = larger beamwidth and fewer grating lobes). On the polar graph, the antenna array is positioned at the center of the graph, and the earth's plane is represented by the 0° to 180° line. A radiation beam that points toward 90° is pointing toward the sky.
A linear antenna array consists of several identical antennas connected to form a single antenna and assembled along a straight line. Antenna arrays produce improved radiation patterns that a single antenna cannot achieve.