An overall azimuthal pattern computation of blocked cylindrical reflector antennas

It is shown that by using the BEM (boundary-element method), it is possible to compute the whole-angle radiation patterns of offset cylindrical reflector antennas with aperture blockage. Consideration is given to a circular cylinder loaded near the aperture of a small offset cylindrical reflector antenna as the blocking model. The overall radiation patterns, including the strut-scattering effects, are predicted by using the BEM and compared with measured patterns (at a frequency of 8 GHz) for verification. Although there appears to be some differences of levels at some wide-angle regions (due probably to a misalignment or measuring setup errors), the entire radiation pattern is found to be well predicted by the numerical data, thus proving the validity of the method.<>