Microwave technique for reflector antenna profile measurement

A method for microwave measurement of the reflector antenna surface profile is described. The technique uses a focused monostatic secondary reflector located on axis at approximately two focal lenths from the reflector under test. Measurement of the two-ways phase change provides profile error information over a set of annular sections. Practical results are provided to illustrate the spatial resolution and sensitivity of the technique.     

An efficient neural network algorithm for reflector surface errorcompensation

A neural network algorithm for electromagnetic compensation of reflector surface error effects is formulated. Sets of trained neural networks are used to compute the compensation excitations for array feeds. The networks were trained using data generated with the constrained least squares (CLS) compensation method. Once trained, the calculation of the excitations is accomplished in significantly less time than required by the original constrained least squares algorithm. The surface error profile for a distorted reflector antenna is expanded using bivariate surface basis functions. Each of the trained networks corresponds to one of the expansion functions. Excitations computed using the neural networks are superposed to produce composite compensation excitations for the distorted reflector. The compensation results for a distorted reflector are presented, and the neural network algorithm performance is compared to the original CLS technique     

Field correlation diffraction theory of the symmetrical cassegrainian antenna

The received field as focused by the parabolic main reflector of a Cassegrainian antenna at the surface of an arbitrary profile subreflector is calculated by a spherical wave expansion. This facilitates the application of the field correlation principle and leads to an expression for aperture efficiency taking into account diffraction effects. A comparison is made with numerical results previously published or obtained by other methods. The potential advantage of the technique is the speed of computation and the capability for synthesis as well as analysis of reflector shapes.     

A synthesis procedure for coated reflector antennas

A procedure is presented for the synthesis of coated axially symmetric reflector antennas to provide specified far-field radiation patterns. The technique stems from ray tracing from the feed to the aperture plane via reflection from the reflector surface. The coating profile required to attenuate the aperture fields is determined based on the reflection of plane waves from metal-backed slabs. The procedure involves two steps. Initially the thickness required to produce the proper magnitude aperture distribution is obtained. Then the reflector is shaped to adjust the phase across the aperture. This procedure is demonstrated in the design of a -40 dB Taylor pattern. Comparison of the results with those obtained using a moment method formulation revealed good agreement between the two formulations     

Application of spherical near-field measurements to microwaveholographic diagnosis of antennas

Microwave diagnosis of antennas is considered as a viable tool for the determination of reflector surface distortions and location of defective radiating elements of array antennas. A hybrid technique based on the combination of the spherical near-field measurements and holographic metrology reconstruction is presented. The measured spherical near-field data are first used to construct the far-field amplitude and phase patterns of the antenna on specified regularized u-v coordinates. These data are then utilized in the surface profile reconstruction of the holographic technique using a fast-Fourier-transform (FFT)/iterative approach. Results of an experiment using a 156-cm reflector antenna measured at 11.3 GHz are presented for both the original antenna and the antenna with four attached bumps. Several contour and gray-scaled plots are presented for the reconstructed surface profiles of the measured antennas. The recovery effectiveness of the attached bumps has been demonstrated. The hybrid procedure presented is used to assess the achieved accuracy of the holographic reconstruction technique because of its ability to determine very accurate far-field amplitude and phase data from the spherical near-field measurements     

空间遥感器反射镜组件的微应力装配技术

讨论了某型号空间遥感器主镜组件的微应力装配技术。在镜面被加工到面形RMS值为λ/10(λ=632.8nm)时进行组件装配。为了尽量减小装配应力对镜面精度的影响,分析了主镜镜面的受力情况,并设计了组件装配流程及装配调整装置。装配后对面形进行了测试与检验,面形数值没有发生变化。最后通过力学环境试验和真空热循环试验进行了验证。结果表明,该装配技术满足设计及使用要求。     

Microwave holographic metrology of large reflector antennas

A microwave holographic technique for the determination of amplitude and phase of the principal and cross-polarized aperture fields of large reflector antennas is described. The hologram formation process utilizes the elevation over azimuth scanning system normally associated with these antennas, and, in this respect, appears to be unique among other proposed methods of field probing. The present work describes the means used to obtain vital information on the antenna structure such asE- andH-plane phase centers of the feed, and rms values of the reflector surface profile errors. Accurate prediction ofE- andH-plane radiation patterns in the near- and far-field is also demonstrated.     

Effect of support strut diffraction on reflector surface profile assessment

The phase-imaging properties of microwave holographic processing are used to provide an inward-looking reconstruction of support strut diffraction and its effect on reflector surface profile assessment. Measured near-field data are employed to illustrate the contribution made by the support strut geometry to the apparent profile error for a 2.5 m reflector antenna operating at 10 GHz. The relative significance of real profile errors and those deriving from strut effects are studied by using a diffraction model. It is concluded that certain configurations of support struts can give rise to significant modification of the effective profile error distribution.     

Preliminary design of large reflectors with flat facets

A concept for approximating curved antenna surfaces using flat facets is discussed. A preliminary design technique for determining the size of the reflector surface facets necessary to meet antenna surface accuracy requirements is presented. A proposed large microwave radiometer satellite (MRS) is selected as an application, and the far-field electromagnetic response of a faceted reflector surface is compared with that from a spherical reflector surface.     

Analysis of the radiation patterns of reflector antennas

The development and application of a numerical technique for the rapid calculation of the far-field radiation patterns of a reflector antenna from either a measured or computed feed pattern are reported. The reflector is defined by the intersection of a cone with any surface of revolution or an offset sector of any surface of revolution. The feed is assumed to be linearly polarized and can have an arbitrary location. Both the copolarized and the cross polarized reflector radiation patterns are computed. Calculations using the technique compare closely with measured radiation patterns of a waveguide-fed offset parabolic reflector. The unique features of this technique are the freedom from restrictive feed assumptions and the numerical methods used in preparing the aperture plane electric field data for integration.     

An approximation of the radiation integral for distorted reflectorantennas using surface-error decomposition

The physical optics/aperture integration (PO/AI) formulation is often used to analyze the radiation patterns of reflector antennas. In this study, the PO/AI radiation integrals for distorted reflector antennas are addressed. The surface error of the antennas is approximated by a series of surface expansion functions. The radiation integral is decomposed into a series of radiation-type integrals, each of which corresponds to one of the surface expansion functions. Each of these radiation-type integrals is then weighted by amplitude coefficients. The advantage of performing the decomposition is that each of the radiation-type integrals can be computed and the pattern data stored. The computation of the pattern for a distorted reflector antenna with a changing error profile is performed by recalling the pattern data for each perturbation term and weighting it with the amplitude coefficient. This facilitates rapid evaluation of the radiation integral in cases where the error profile is changing (for example, time-varying errors). The superposition of integrals presented in this paper was shown to be valid for surface-error profiles up to 0.1 λ rms amplitude     

Surface accuracy measurement of a deployable mesh reflector byplanar near-field scanning

Using a near-field antenna measurement facility, it is possible to simultaneously evaluate the surface accuracy of a reflector antenna as well as the far-field pattern of the antenna for a short time. The surface errors of a 2-m deployable mesh reflector for satellite use were measured by a planar near-field system. As a result, the influence of periodic structures, due to the antenna ribs, is clearly observed. Also, the surface accuracy obtained with the near field scanning technique coincides well with that obtained by an optical measurement technique     

Panel gap cover for millimetre-wave antenna

The reflector of the 10 m diameter, millimetre-wave, South Pole Telescope has been equipped with reflecting covers over the gaps between panels. The covers are thin metal strips that lie on the surface of the panels, with spring clip retainers that engage steps in the panel edges. Covering the gaps reduces thermal noise from the reflector by 2 K at the expense of increasing the surface profile error by 11 m rms.     

Subreflectarrays for Reflector Surface Distortion Compensation

With the increasing interest in the applications of large deployable reflector antennas operating at high frequencies, the requirement on the reflector surface accuracy becomes more demanding. Thermal effects inevitably cause certain reflector surface distortions, thus degrading the overall antenna performance. This paper introduces a novel reflector surface distortion compensation technique using a subreflectarray and presents detailed discussions. A microstrip reflectarray is used as a subreflector, illuminated by a primary feed. By properly adjusting the additional phase shift provided by the subreflectarray, the aperture phase errors caused by the main reflector surface distortions are compensated, resulting in a considerably improved antenna performance. As an example, a distorted 20-m offset parabolic reflector antenna operating at X-band is successfully compensated by a subreflectarray, and the simulation results are compared with those obtained by array feed and shaped subreflector compensation techniques. The microstrip subreflectarray is low-profile, lightweight, and cost-effective. Only one primary feed is required, and a reconfigurable design can be achieved if electronically reconfigurable reflectarray elements are adopted.      

Analysis of one-dimensional zonal reflectors

A one-dimensional zonal reflector is a conducting surface which is uniform in one direction and has a zonal profile in the other. Similar to a cylindrical reflector, it converts a cylindrical wave from a line-source into an outgoing plane wave. The radiation performance of such reflectors with TM-wave illumination is analyzed by the method of moments (MoM). The influence of corner diffraction and zoning on the sidelobe level is investigated. Three types of configurations are considered, which include the parabolic zonal reflector and two stepwise zonal reflectors of different configurations. It is found that corner diffraction makes a significant contribution to the sidelobe level, but zoning intrinsically raises the far-out sidelobes. Numerical results show that the near-in sidelobes of the stepwise zonal reflector can be significantly decreased by adjusting the geometrical configuration     

Reflector antenna profile measurement using ultrasound

A method for the measurement of reflector antenna surface profiles requiring no mechanical contact is described. The technique consists of placing an ultrasonic transmitter at the reflector focus and measuring the phase over the whole of the reflector aperture. Profile errors of order ±0.1 mm have been measured.     

Compensation of reflector antenna surface distortion using an arrayfeed

Various aspects of reflector surface distortion compensation are explored by first assuming the reflector distortion is given and then designing the compensating feed array. The sensitivity of boresight directivity to changing surface distortion parameters for fixed feed-array geometries is examined. It is found that feed array compensation is feasible only for distortions with low spatial frequency content, such as those distortions induced by thermal and gravitational effects. The optimum directivity methods for determining element excitation is found to yield slightly better values of directivity than those for the conjugate field matching (CMF) technique. However, the CFM technique has, in general, much lower sidelobe levels and lends itself to simple realization in hardware. In view of these results, distortion compensation using an array feed is concluded to be a reasonable approach to improving antenna performance for large, space-based reflector antennas that are not easily accessible for tuning and have time-dependent surface distortions     

大口径反射镜的ANSYS有限元分析及实验研究

为了研究大口径反射镜的面形,在广泛调研大口径反射镜应力控制技术的基础上,从理论模型和实验两个方面同时进行。利用ANSYS建立大口径反射镜模型,得到其重力作用下的形变和受力面积变化的DPV-S关系曲线。建立了反射镜面形变化实验验证平台,对垂直放置的反射镜在不同方向上加力,利用干涉仪实测上侧面加压和背部支撑时的形变。实验验证了理论模拟结果,二者相差仅仅0.002μm～0.122μm。结果表明,这对今后进行类似的实验研究提供了值得借鉴的面形检测方法,为寻求优化的大口径反射面形控制装校方案奠定了基础。     

Secondary pattern and focal region distribution of reflector antennas under wide-angle scanning

A new numerical method, Fourier-Bessel series techniques, has been developed to investigate the far-field pattern and focal region distribution of reflector antennas under wide-angle scanning. In this Fourier-Bessel series technique, the current on the reflector surface is first expanded in terms of elementary sinusoidal functions via the well established fast Fourier transform (FFT) algorithm and the surface integration involved in physical optics integration is then carried out analytically. The derivation of Fourier-Bessel series and its convergence as applied to parabolic reflectors are described. The secondary patterns and focal region distributions of a parabolic reflector withF/D = 0.48and scanning up to 48 beamwidths are presented.