Passive intermodulation analysis for mesh antennas

Passive Intermodulation (PIM) becomes a serious electromagnetic interference due to the development of high-sensitivity microwave communication systems, especially large deployable mesh antennas. In this paper, a 3D geometrical model which can describe the precise metal-metal contact is established. The metal-metal contact is described by a nonlinear equivalent circuit which is regarded as PIM source. Then the contact current is scattered to far-field, and PIM value of one meter quadrate mesh sample is evaluated, which agrees with the experiment result.