High Efficiency Multibeam Single Aperture Lens Antenna

Current contiguous coverage multibeam antenna design requires multi-apertures to optimize the antenna gain and sidelobe performance. For example, we can use four lenses fed by arrays of horns with the adjacent beams being formed from separable apertures. The feed horn array of each lens must be conformed to a spherical surface so that the feed horns properly illuminate the lenses. In manufacturing, the beams of the four arrays must be precisely aligned so that the beam coverages and crossovers are correct. The required spherical arrangement of the feeds which impacts the beamforming network (BFN) design and the critical alignment problems are significant cost factors in these feeds. The objective of this paper is to compare the non-focusing aperture technique using a single oversized lens aperture. This technique allows the entire feed array to be assembled as a planar unit. The alignment of the beams follow from the array structure and does not require expensive interspaced beam alignments as well as a significantly simpler beamforming network geometry.