Coaxial feeds for high aperture efficiency and low spillover of paraboloidal reflector antennas

Coaxial feeds produce an approximate sector-shaped pattern, an almost optimum pattern of a feed for high aperture efficiency and low spillover of paraboloid antennas. Such a coaxial feed consists of a central circular waveguide which is surrounded by one or more conductors with circular cross sections. Theoretical and experimental investigations on coaxial feeds excited by H11modes have shown that the first ring yields the highest increase in the aperture efficiency of paraboloid antennas illuminated by them. Measurements performed on paraboloid antennas illuminated by a coaxial feed with only one ring yielded aperture efficiencies of 68 to 75 percent for angular apertures of the paraboloidal reflector of100degto160deg. Circularly symmetric patterns in conjunction with almost linearly polarized aperture fields can be achieved by multimode coaxial feeds. The values for the aperture efficiency, which are calculated for paraboloid antennas illuminated by multimode coaxial feeds, nearly reach the theoretical optimum. The measured values are 68 to 80 percent. In addition, the multimode feeds produce very little cross polarization.     

Analysis of reflector antenna systems with arbitrary feed arraysusing primary field superposition

In contrast to secondary pattern superposition, where the fields reflected from the main reflector arising from each element are superimposed in the far field of the reflector, the approach presented here sums the primary fields at the reflector surface before the physical optics radiation integral is performed. The method allows each feed array element to have arbitrary position, orientation, pattern, and excitation (magnitude and phase). In addition, it is inherently efficient because evaluation of only one time-consuming radiation integral is required, rather than one per feed element as in secondary superposition. The method allows for accurate calculation of the power radiated from the feed, permitting the reflector gain and spillover efficiency to be determined within the context of a single computer program. The accuracies and characteristics of this method are demonstrated with several examples     

Study of element patterns and excitations of the line feeds of the spherical reflector antenna in Arecibo

The element patterns of the circularly polarized line feeds for the spherical reflector in Arecibo are calculated, showing strong endfire radiation. The radiation fields of the line feeds are then obtained by adding up the contributions from all elements. The optimum excitation of the feed is found by an approximate stationary-phase solution of the radiation field. This shows that the element pattern gives a large phase contribution to the excitation, because of the finite diameter of the feed. If not corrected for, this phase error can cause losses up to 1.5 dB. The excitation is optimized further by cutting and trying. The validity of the analytical models is checked by calculation of the radiation pattern of the existing 96.6 ft 430 MHz feed. The excitation is modeled from measured phases along the feed. The calculated radiation patterns show good agreement with the measurements, including the phase errors and the dip in the center. By using the proposed new excitation it should be possible to increase the efficiency of the 96.6 ft feed by 0.7 dB and to increase the efficiency of the 40 ft feeds at higher frequencies by even more.     

Synthesis of the fields of a transverse feed for a spherical reflector

The problem of designing a transverse feed for a spherical reflector is considered and a method is presented for synthesizing the fields on a surface of a sphere enclosing a feed that will produce a specified reflected field at the surface of a spherical reflector. The method identifies the reflector and a spherical surface enclosing the feed as a boundary value problem and uses a finite set of spherical waves to approximate the boundary conditions. A feed designed to excite this field will in turn produce the desired reflected field at the surface of the reflector, under the condition that that portion of the reflected field which is scattered by the feed may be neglected. It is shown that the feed need produce only a small part of the synthesized field to obtain an antenna efficiency of more than 70 percent. Some typical field distributions will be shown so as to indicate a method for designing a feed and to point out the correlation between the polarization of the synthesized field and the polarization of the reflected field at the surface of the reflector.     

Radiation pattern synthesis for circular aperture horn antennas

A set of radiation pattern functions, suitable for synthesis of radiation patterns from circular aperture horn antennas, is obtained by assuming an aperture distribution consisting of the fields of cylindrical waveguide modes. A technique is presented for using a linear combination of the radiation pattern functions to approximate a desired radiation pattern. Linear combinations of the radiation pattern functions resulting in maximum secondary gain, when used to illuminate a paraboloidal antenna, are obtained empirically. Using spherical wave theory, maximum performance theoretically obtainable from an antenna is derived as a function of the aperture size of the feed system; the feed efficiency resulting from these theoretical limits on performance is compared to the feed efficiency of patterns obtainable from circular aperture horn antennas, and to experimental results of attempts to realize optimum circular aperture horn patterns.     

用FDTD和物理光学混合法分析毫米波抛物面天线

抛物面天线通常的分析方法是几何光学法和物理光学法,对于电大尺寸的抛物面天线这两种方法都可以得到较好的结果,对于电小尺寸馈源的抛物面天线,馈源方向图不仅取决于辐射器本身的辐射特性,其馈电结构对馈源方向图也有较大的影响,在此情况下,用上述方法得到的结果与实验结果之间有较大的误差.利用FDTD可以把整个馈电结构纳入计算域中,得到辐射器完整的近区场,由等效原理可求出抛物面上电流分布,从而用物理光学方法计算抛物面天线远区场.本文用这种混合方法分析计算了毫米波波导裂缝作为辐射器的抛物面天线,计算结果和测试结果相当吻合,证明了方法的有效性.     

Novel Gaussian beam method for the rapid analysis of largereflector antennas

A relatively fast and simple method utilizing Gaussian beams (GBs) is developed which requires only a few seconds on a workstation to compute the near/far fields of electrically large reflector antennas when they are illuminated by a feed with a known radiation pattern. This GB technique is fast, because it completely avoids any numerical integration on the large reflector surface which is required in the conventional physical optics (PO) analysis of such antennas and which could take several hours on a workstation. Specifically, the known feed radiation field is represented by a set of relatively few, rotationally symmetric GBs that are launched radially out from the feed plane and with almost identical interbeam angular spacing. These GBs strike the reflector surface from where they are reflected, and also diffracted by the reflector edge; the expressions for the fields reflected and diffracted by the reflector illuminated with a general astigmatic incident GB from an arbitrary direction (but not close to grazing on the reflector) have been developed in Chou and Pathak (1997) and utilized in this work. Numerical results are presented to illustrate the versatility, accuracy, and efficiency of this GB method when it is used for analyzing general offset parabolic reflectors with a single feed or an array feed, as well as for analyzing nonparabolic reflectors such as those described by ellipsoidal and even general shaped surfaces     

A scattering matrix-based beamformer for wide-angle scanning in hybrid antennas

This paper presents a new approach to beamforming in hybrid antennas. Using a scattering matrix model for the hybrid antenna system, a bidirectional transformation is developed that relates the signals at the hybrid system feed to the signals that would be present in a planar array at the location of the reflector aperture. For example, the received fields at the feed of a hybrid antenna system may be transformed into the fields at the reflector aperture, and these reflector aperture fields may then be processed as if they were received by a planar or linear array. Similarly, the desired field or current distribution across the reflector aperture when transmitting may be transformed into the required field or current distribution at the hybrid system feed. This method allows standard linear or planar array analysis and synthesis techniques to be used with the hybrid system. Examples are provided for transmit and receive weight synthesis.     

Hybrid analysis of reflector antennas including higher order interactions and blockage effects

The analysis of a reflector antenna system consisting of a feeder, a sub-reflector, and a main-reflector in microwave frequency bands, where the electrical dimensions of the antenna become prohibitively large for the use of a rigorous numerical method, has been performed by high-frequency asymptotic techniques (HFATs). As a result, the radiation patterns and input impedances of the antenna system were calculated based on an approximation: the radiation characteristics of the feed, sub-reflector and main-reflector are independent from each other. In this study, as an effort to alleviate the inaccuracy due to the exclusion of higher order mutual interactions existing among those subsystems, three different hybrid methods [finite-element method/method of moment (FEM/MOM) + physical optics (PO), FEM/MOM + geometrical theory of diffraction (GTD), and FEM/MOM + PO + physical theory of diffraction (PTD)] are introduced in the context of an iterative algorithm. The interactions between the feed and sub-reflector are accounted by a hybrid method which combines the FEM with the MOM; FEM/MOM. Whereas, the interactions between the objects in the FEM/MOM domain and the main-reflector are taken into account through the iteration: the fields and currents in the FEM/MOM domain are updated using the fields and currents obtained from the HFAT domain and vise-versa. These three methods are applied to two-dimensional reflector configurations, and corresponding results are compared in terms of accuracy and efficiency. The accuracy of the hybrid methods, especially those of FEM/MOM + GTD and FEM/MOM + PO + PTD, is found to be comparable to that of a rigorous numerical method. Furthermore, their computational costs are almost independent to the size of the main-reflector and to the distance from the feed point to the main-reflector.     

Analysis of numerically specified multireflector antennas bykinematic and dynamic ray tracing

A technique for tracing rays and fields with several numerically specified reflectors by using geometrical optics (GO) is described. The ray paths are determined by launching individual rays from the feed point and following them by reflection from all the reflector surfaces to the output aperture of the last reflector. This procedure is referred to as kinematic ray tracing. Thereafter, the amplitude, phase and polarization of the E-field is traced along the ray paths to the aperture; this is referred to as dynamic ray tracing. The aperture field is then integrated to find the aperture efficiency, which is factorized into convenient subefficiencies. The technique has been implemented in a computer code that has been used to analyze the proposed new shaped-offset dual-reflector feed for the spherical reflector antenna at the Arecibo Observatory     

Feed models for coax-driven monopole and dipole antennas

A method is presented for accurately modeling a monopole or dipole antenna fed by a coaxial line. The base of the monopole is attached to a conducting plane through which the coaxial feed line extends to the feed. The feed structures considered are easily adaptable to physically rugged forms and are simple to construct. Equivalent models for the three regions of the structure are devised and coupled integral equations for aperture fields and surface currents are formulated to enforce the boundary conditions. Three variations of the feed configuration are discussed and the reflection coefficient of the antenna feed is determined from the data obtained from the solutions of the coupled integral equations. Computed reflection coefficient values are shown to agree well with values measured on laboratory models.     

Reflector radiation pattern from planar near-field measurements of array feed

High gain shaped beam antennas for satellite frequency reuse applications are almost exclusively obtained by the use of complex multielement feed arrays to provide pattern control in conjunction with offset reflectors to remove blockage effects. In the design of complex multielement feed arrays for offset reflectors, the element excitations are usually synthesized using the isolated element properties. Proper performance of the array often requires that these theoretical excitations be modified to account for the effects on the feed elements due to the array environment. Near-field planar probing of the fields of the feed array have been found to provide an efficient and accurate method of predicting the secondary performances, including cross polarization and axial ratio. The nearfield measurement technique, moreover, provides an extremely effective method of determining the element performance and for determining the required compensation for desired antenna performance.     

反斯托克斯荧光制冷技术的研究

自1995年Epstein实现了光与热的制冷效应的历史性突破以来，由于该制冷方法具有全光性的独特优点，同时制备的制冷器具有无振动和噪声，无电磁辐射，体积小，质量轻，可靠性高等特点，因此反斯托克斯荧光制冷器在军事，航天卫星，微电子，低温物理与工程等领域具有非常诱人的应用前景。首先介绍了该制冷方式的发展历史，研究现状和激光制冷的研制水平；其次运用热力学基本定律对反斯托克斯荧光制冷过程中的能量转换关系及转换深度减进行了分析，得出了这一过程的最大热力学效率和计算公式，为设计激光制冷器提供了热力学限制上限；最后对激光制冷的应用前景和问题进行了分析。     

On the efficiency and radiation patterns of mismatched shaped Cassegrainian antenna systems

Calculations are carried out with regard to the aperture illumination efficiency, spillover efficiency, and blockage efficiency of a shaped Cassegrainian antenna system whose feed pattern is not similar to that for which the antenna was designed. It appears that a maximum overall efficiency may be expected for antenna systems with a feed pattern having a slightly narrower beamwidth than those for which the systems were originally designed. It is further proved that the radiation pattern of mismatched systems is very unfavorable in the case of the beamwidth of the feed pattern being wider than the beamwidth of the feed pattern for which the system was designed. This is due to overillumination of the edges.     

Dual parabolic cylindrical reflectors employed as a compact range

Compact ranges using dual parabolic cylindrical reflectors are investigated, and the dependence of the aperture field on the feed pattern and system geometrical parameters is studied. A uniformity factor is defined to indicate the aperture field uniformity and the significance of the diffracted fields is explored. Offset configurations are also considered and studied. It is shown that their feed location and orientation can be optimized to minimize the geometrical-optics cross polarization. The effects of offset angle on the edge diffraction and aperture shape are also studied     

Edge-fed patch antennas with reduced spurious radiation

In this paper, a technique to reduce the spurious feed radiation from edge-fed patch antennas by using a dual thickness substrate is presented. A thin microwave substrate is employed for the feed network, and then a transition is made to a thick substrate for the patch antenna element. The new feeding procedure allows the feed network and antenna elements to be optimized independently. Measured results on a single element prototype exhibit a reduction in the level of cross-polarized fields and decreased pattern distortion whilst preserving a reasonable impedance bandwidth. The technique is also proven to be beneficial in an array environment, as an extensive transmission line feed network is required. We present the theoretical and experimental results of a 1 /spl times/ 8 edge-fed patch array that utilizes the dual thickness substrate configuration. Significant improvement in the radiation patterns and gain are observed for the new array compared to a standard edge-fed patch array.     

Optimization of the TEM feed structure for four-arm reflectorimpulse radiating antennas

This paper considers the optimization of the feed arm geometry of four-arm crossed-coplanar plate impulse radiating antennas (IRAs) when the angular position and extent of the arms are taken as free parameters. Previously, optimization of this class of antenna considered only the symmetric case where the two pairs of crossed feed arms were perpendicular to each other. Comparison is made using the prompt aperture efficiency, and the results indicate that the efficiency of four-arm IRAs can be increased from ~25% for the perpendicularly crossed arms to ~35% for the optimum configuration. In addition to the optimization, the feed impedance of coplanar feeds is presented for general values of feed arm angle and plate width, and the optimum feed impedance is computed for each feed arm angle. The results can be used to design the optimal four-arm IRA with an arbitrary specified input impedance     

Offset-reflector antennas with offset feeds

The development of a simple mathematical model for the vector radiation fields from offset-parabolic-reflector antennas is outlined. The model permits the primary feed to be offset from the reflector geometric focus, and thus allows the study of multiple-beam antennas. Predicted results are shown and correlated with measurements made on a 30 GHz antenna system.     

Aperture feed for a spherical reflector

The problem of designing a feed system for illuminating a spherical reflector is examined. A method is proposed for specifying the required field distribution over the aperture of the feed system, and the primary illumination and gain resulting from this distribution are derived. The results indicate that a significantly smaller feed aperture can be employed than would be indicated by conventional ray tracing methods. Specific numerical results are obtained by taking the Arecibo antenna as an example, for which a calculated aperture efficiency of 67.5 percent is possible with approximately a 38-foot-diameter aperture feed.     

Scale model development of a high efficiency dual polarized line feed for the Arecibo spherical reflector

The experimental development of a 1:6.535 scale model line feed for the Arecibo spherical reflector is described. The 14.7-ft long model at 2810 MHz simulates a 96.6-ft feed at 430 MHz capable of illuminating the full 1000-ft aperture of the reflector. The feed design requirements are discussed and an experimental program is outlined in which the necessary line source parameters were established using a number of leaky cylindrical test sections. Experimental measurements of both the near and far fields of the model feed are described and typical results are quoted and discussed. Finally, some results obtained after installation of a full size feed in the reflector are given and compared with predictions based on the model data.