Radiating elements are dipoles, monopoles, slot antennas, etc. There exist different patterns of positioning radiating elements and phase-distribution of high-frequency current in them. By changing the phase ratio it is possible to customize directional properties of the antenna array (the direction of maximum radiation, directional diagram width, etc.)
The most popular arrays are those with the radiating elements positioned in one plane. Two most common ways of current phasing are cophased (cophased antenna) and the one with phase-lag progressively increasing from one element to another (progresive-wave antenna.) In the first case the direction of maximum radiation is normal to the plane of the array, in the second way it is in line with the element arrangement.
The antenna array the parameters of which adaptively adjust to the radio channel conditions, in order to ensure a better signal recept, is called adaptive antenna array.