Analysis of arbitrarily shaped dielectric lens antenna

Collision warning radar installed in a vehicle has received attention as the next safety driving support system in Japan. An electronically scanned MM wave antenna, a microstrip antenna and a dielectric lens antenna have been proposed for this application (see Nishikawa, K., 1998). The lens antenna has suitable characteristics, such as narrow beamwidth, low sidelobes, and scanning capability, for collision warning radar. The ray tracing method is proposed to analyze an arbitrarily shaped dielectric lens antenna. Although the reflection loss is considered in the calculation, multiple reflections within the lens are not considered. As an example of numerical calculation, the radiation patterns of the dielectric lens antenna fed by a conical horn antenna have been shown.