RASCAL-interactive freeware for designing classical single- and dual-reflector antennas

Software for designing classical single- and dual-reflector antennas is presented. This software, named RASCAL (for Reflector Antenna Synthesis software from the University of Southern California), was initially developed to handle only classical offset dual-reflector geometries. Although RASCAL 1.0 achieved great success, and is currently being used by many individuals (and companies) to design dual-reflector systems, it also provided valuable feedback on how it could be improved. Acting on this, and also recognizing RASCAL as an educational tool, both USC and CAEME (Computer Applications in Electromagnetics Education) funded the development of RASCAL 2.1. This improved version is capable of interactively designing four classical reflector systems: axially symmetric and offset paraboloidal reflectors, and axially symmetric and offset dual reflector systems. To assure the widest possible portability good color graphics, and user friendly interaction RASCAL is written in C and runs on any IBM-PC compatible platform with an 80286 (or higher) microprocessor and VGA (or better) graphics capabilities.