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     

Design of dual-reflector antennas with arbitrary phase and amplitude distributions

A synthesis method based on geometrical optics for designing a dual-reflector antenna system with an arbitrary phase and amplitude distribution in the aperture of the second reflector is presented. The first reflector may be illuminated by a pattern with an arbitrarily curved phase front. A pair of first-order ordinary nonlinear differential equations of the formdy/dx=f(x, y)are developed for the system. Questions concerning uniqueness, existence and bounds for the solutions can be answered. Calculations and numerical results for the design of a uniform amplitude and phase dual-reflector system are presented.     

Five Layer Optical Maser Amplification

The optical maser is treated in the manner of a Fabry-Perot resonator with an active medium. Five layers are considered: air, reflector, active medium (ruby), reflector, and air. General equations are derived using the method of boundary value problems in which it is assumed that incident coherent radiation falls normally on the surface. It is suggested that the presence of lossless one-quarter wavelength reflectors will enhance the amplification of the device in that less pumping may be required for a given length of ruby. The role of the reflectors in oscillation conditions is shown to be of importance. Methods are indicated for the calculation of amplitude and phase for an idealized amplifier.     

Analysis of a frequency-modulated reflex klystron with minimum incidental amplitude modulation

Simultaneous modulation of the reflector and beam voltages of a reflex klystron will produce frequency modulation with minimum incidental amplitude modulation. The required variation of reflector voltage with beam voltage, for constant output power, is derived from the fundamental equations of the reflex klystron. Experimental verification of this analysis is presented. Reflex klystron oscillators which can be frequency modulated with minimum incidental amplitude modulation find application in FM Doppler radars, communications systems, and as signal sources for microwave testing.     

A parasitic slot array

The analysis of an endfire array of tunable parasitic slots is described. Self and mutual admittances between thin half-wavelength slots are found by an application of Babinet's Principle. To solve the circuit equations of the array, the condition is imposed that the phase velocity remain constant along the array. Then, by matrix inversion, the excitation amplitude and self-reactance of the parasitic elements are determined. The phase of the reflector is chosen to maximize the coupling between the driven element and the directors. Finally, experimental patterns are compared with computed results.     

Synthesis of offset dual reflector antennas transforming a given feed illumination pattern into a specified aperture distribution

The problem of transforming a given primary feed pattern into a desired aperture field distribution through two reflections by an offset dual reflector system is investigated using the concepts of geometrical optics. A numerically rigorous solution for the reflector surfaces is developed which realizes an exact aperture phase distribution and an aperture amplitude distribution that is accurate to within an arbitrarily small numerical tolerance. However, this procedure does not always yield a smooth solution, i.e., the reflector surfaces thus realized may not be continuous or their slopes may vary too rapidly. In the event of nonexistence of a numerically rigorous smooth solution, an approximate solution that enforces the smoothness of the reflector surfaces can be obtained. In the approximate solution, only the requirement for the aperture amplitude distribution is relaxed, and the condition on the aperture phase distribution is continued to be satisfied exactly.     

Offset dual-shaped reflectors for dual chamber compact ranges

The application of the theory of the synthesis of offset dual-shaped reflectors to the design of compact ranges is examined. The object of the compact range is to provide a uniform plane wave with minimum amplitude and phase ripple over as large a volume as possible for a given size reflector. Ripple can be lowered by reducing the edge diffraction from the reflector producing the plane wave. This has been done either by serrating or rolling the edge. An alternative approach is to use dual offset-shaped reflector synthesis techniques to produce a reflector aperture distribution that is uniform over most of the aperture, but with a Gaussian taper near the edge. This approach can be used together with rolling and/or serration if desirable. The amount of phase and amplitude ripple obtained with two different dual-shaped reflector designs is studied as a function of position in the plane wave zone and reflector size in wavelengths. The amount of both transverse and longitudinal (z-component) cross polarization is studied     

Phase and amplitude phase restoration in synthetic aperture radarimaging

Methods for addressing two types of multiplicative noise in synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imaging are presented. The authors consider a multiplicative noise with a real phase (i.e. the SAR signal's phase is contaminated but its amplitude is uncorrupted) that possesses unknown functional characteristics with respect to the radar signal's temporal frequencies. A perturbation solution for phase reconstruction from amplitude is developed from a wave equation governing the SAR signal and a Riccati equation that relates the amplitude and phase functions of the SAR signal. This solution is converted into a noniterative analytical solution in terms of the moments and powers of the log amplitude function. Next, the authors consider a multiplicative noise with a complex phase (i.e. both the amplitude and phase of the SAR signal are contaminated) that varies linearly with respect to the radar signal's temporal frequencies. The two wave equations governing the SAR signal at two temporal frequencies of the radar signal are combined to derive a method to reconstruct the complex phase error function.     

Dual reflector feed system for hologram-based compact antenna test range

Manufacturing of large computer-generated submillimeter wave holograms with high pattern accuracy has been the main challenge in the development of hologram based compact antenna test ranges (CATRs). Illumination of the hologram with a shaped beam produced by a dual reflector feed system (DRFS) simplifies the hologram manufacturing by eliminating the narrow slots in the hologram pattern. In this paper, the design of a shaped dual reflector feed for a hologram CATR is described. The simulated and measured illumination field amplitude and phase at 310 GHz are presented and compared to the desired hologram illumination. The measured amplitude is within /spl plusmn/0.5 dB from the design objective in the most significant central region of the illuminating beam. Measurement results of the quiet-zone field of a demonstration CATR illuminated by the DRFS are presented and compared to the measured quiet-zone amplitude and phase of a hologram fed directly with a corrugated horn. The quiet-zone diameters of the both holograms are over 0.25 meters and the measured root mean squared (rms) amplitude and phase ripples are below /spl plusmn/0.4 dB and /spl plusmn/5/spl deg/, respectively. Further improvements to the hologram CATR, such as greater tolerance to manufacturing errors, are also discussed.     

Optimisation of feed position and improved profile mapping of a reflector antenna from microwave holographic measurements

A method for optimising the feed position of a prime focus reflector antenna from phase and amplitude recordings of the radiated field is given. Experimental results illustrate the improved radiation pattern and the detailed profile map of the reflector attained after feed position correction.     

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     

Nonuniform sampling techniques for antenna applications

Recent investigations have demonstrated that uniform sampling techniques can be effectively applied for construction of far-field patterns of antennas. There are, however, many circumstances for which it may not be practical to directly utilize uniform sampling techniques. A two-dimensional sampling technique which can employ irregularly (nonuniformly) spaced samples (amplitude and phase) in order to generate the complete far-field patterns is presented. The technique implements a matrix inversion algorithm which depends only on the nonuniform sampled data point locations and with no dependence on the actual field values at these points. A powerful simulation algorithm is presented to allow a real-life simulation of many reflector/feed configurations and to determine the usefulness of the nonuniform sampling technique for the co-polar and cross-polar patterns. Additionally, an overlapped window concept and a generalized error simulation model are discussed to identify the stability of the technique for recovering the field data among the nonuniform sampled data. Numerical results are tailored for the pattern reconstruction of a 20-m offset reflector antenna operating atL-band. This reflector is planned to be used in a proposed measurement concept of large antennas aboard the space shuttle, whereby it would be almost impractical to accurately control the movement of the shuttle with respect to the radio frequency (RF) source in prescribed directions in order to generate uniform (u, v) sampled points. Also, application of the nonuniform sampling technique to patterns obtained using near-field measured data is demonstrated. Finally, results of an actual far-field measurement are presented for the construction of patterns of a reflector antenna from a set of nonuniformly distributed measured amplitude and phase data.     

Design of high-efficiency antennas employing dielectric-cone feeds

A design procedure based on the principles of geometrical optics, for any arbitrary amplitude and phase distributions, is described for antennas employing dielectric-cone feeds. The procedure can be used for dual-reflector antennas, reflector antennas with a subreflector supported with dielguides and reflector antennas using dielectric-cone feeds with a shaped reflecting surface of the cone material.     

Effects of phase and amplitude quantization errors on hybrid phased-array reflector antennas

The tolerance of hybrid array/refleetor antennas to feed element phase and amplitude quantization errors is examined. The effeets of quantization errors on the peak and root mean square (rms) sidelobes are derived for an example parabolie reflector.     

La synthèse d’antennes à deux réflecteurs conformés à alimentation décalée

A potentially economic method for upgrading the gain of the large earth reflector antenna Cassegrain system to a gain comparable to that obtainable with a dualshaped reflector antenna system is presented herein. It involves a redesign of only the subreflector portion of a Cassegrain antenna or the introduction of a subreflector feed system for a paraboloid. A pair of offset subreflectors are synthesized which will give a controllable high gain amplitude distribution in the aperture of the large paraboloid. The synthesis method that is used is based on an approximate formulation for an offset dual shaped high gain antenna where the geometrical optics energy was scattered from a subreflector and then from a second large reflector which reflected a uniform phase distribution. In the present offset dual shaped subreflector (DSS) antenna, the second reflection is from a smaller subreflector and it scatters a spherical wave that feeds a hyperboloid or feeds a large paraboloid directly. Excellent results are shown for the approximate synthesis of the DSS.     

基于相移和非相干成像的反射镜面形测量方法

提出一种新的反射镜面形测量方法。这种方法采用非相干成像和相移技术，CCD摄像机经待测反射镜和相同位置处参考平面镜分别对由计算机产生的正弦光栅进行成像，通过相移技术得到各自的相位分布，从而计算出正弦光栅的相位变化。推导了相位变化与待测反射镜面形梯度的对应关系，提出分别对反射镜进行水平和垂直2个方向光栅相位测量，通过计算可得到梯度分布，由此重建待测反射镜面形。测量中，光栅由计算机产生，可以实现精确的相移，而且可以方便地调节光栅的周期以及方向。计算机模拟和实验表明这一技术的可行性。与传统的干涉计量相比较，这种方法具有结构简单、成本低和灵活性高等优点，特别适用于非球面反射镜和波前变化范围较大的反射镜面形测量。     

Signal delay characteristics of the measuring repeater unit operating in the Fresnel zone

A modification of the numerical technique for calculating the field and delay of the signal reflected by a flat reflector and based on the Fresnel-Kirchhoff equation of the diffraction scalar field has been proposed. The relationships taking into account the size of antennas and reflector as well as changes of the amplitude and phase characteristics of repeater channels were obtained. It was shown that the signal delay characteristics in the Fresnel zone depended on the size of reflector shifting with the signal delay variations.     

Field probe for measuring both amplitude and phase of antenna radiation patterns

Small probe antennas are often used for measuring the amplitude and phase of antenna radiation patterns. Phase measurements are complicated by the need for an accurate r.f. phase reference to be conveyed to or from the mobile probe. The letter describes a scheme for simplifying such measurements by the use of a probe unit which backscatters incident energy after subjecting it to a single sideband frequency translation. The scheme has application to both compact ranges and to the measurement of profile errors in reflector antennas by phase measurements within the aperture plane.     

小型轻质长条反射镜挠性支撑方案研究

光学反射镜支撑结构良好的尺寸稳定性是保证其成像的关键因素,对小型轻质长条反射镜来说,反射镜自身的特点是长宽比较大,不利于支撑的展开,这必然会给反射镜的支撑结构设计带来困难。针对这种情况,本文对某型反射镜的支撑进行了研究,提出了单点挠性的概念,并对具体结构进行了细致的研究。工程分析表明,这种支撑可以很好地保证反射镜在静力学、热环境下镜面具有较高成像质量,而其支撑自身在一定的动态环境下不会破坏。这种支撑结构不仅具有静态、动态的尺寸稳定性,而且重量较轻,适合小型空间遥感器使用。     

Accurate evaluation of a millimeter wave compact range using planar near-field scanning

Significant progress has been made in recent years on planar near-field measurements for antenna calibrations. Such measurements are also useful in the alignment and evalnation of compact ranges because they provide more information than a limited number of analogue plots in one dimension. Contour plots of amplitude and phase data obtained from more complete two-dimensional measurements precisely and accurately locate sources of problems in the range reflector, with phase contour plots being more useful as diagnostic tools.