A new multimode rectangular horn antenna generating a circularly polarized elliptical beam

Author

Han, Ching C. ; Wickert, Adam N.

Author_Institution

Philco-Ford Corp., Palo Alto, CA USA

Volume

22

Issue

6

fYear

1974

fDate

11/1/1974 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

746

Lastpage

751

Abstract

A multimode circularly polarized rectangular horn antenna generating an elliptical shaped beam is described. This antenna operates in two orthogonal mode sets, namely the TE10+ TE/TM12and TE01+ TE/TM21modes. By virtue of the higher order TE/TM modes, the aperture $E$ -field distribution can be tapered such that the effective $E$ -plane far-field beam width is approximately equal to the $H$ -plane beam width of the other orthogonal set of modes, resulting in low off-axis polarization axial ratio. Because of the tapered aperture distribution, the radiation patterns also have low sidelobes. The elliptical cross section beam is a direct result of the rectangular shaped aperture. This antenna, used in conjunction with a spacecraft to illuminate an elliptical zone on the earth surface, offers high edge-of-coverage gain, low sidelobes, low edge-of-coverage (EOC) axial ratio, less RF sensitivity to the space environment, and low cost. The performance of this antenna has been evaluated experimentally.

Keywords

Horn antennas; Satellite antennas; Antenna radiation patterns; Apertures; Costs; Directional antennas; Earth; Horn antennas; Polarization; Shape; Space vehicles; Tellurium;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Antennas and Propagation, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-926X

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/TAP.1974.1140893

Filename

1140893