On the radiation of horn clusters including mutual coupling and the effects of finite metal plates: application to the synthesis of contoured beam antennas

This work describes a model of the radiation of horn clusters for contoured beam antennas. The model includes internal mutual coupling (through a power divider network), modal conversions and reflections inside the horns, external mutual coupling and the effects of the edges of the metal plate that holds the cluster together. This model is applied to the synthesis of the direct broadcast satellite (DBS) antenna of the HISPASAT satellite, the computed immersed patterns of each horn being used in the optimization of the excitations. Results are given concerning model validation and optimization with immersed patterns