The effects of subreflector diffraction on the aperture efficiency of a conventional Cassegrain antenna--An analytical approach

An asymptotic theory is presented with which the reduction in aperture efficiency caused by diffraction from a subreflector edge can be calculated for any dual-reflector system. The theory is applied to conventional Cassegrain antennas, for which approximate analytical effieiency formulas are derived. These formulas show that subreflector diffraction may represent a significant efficiency loss even for subreflector diameters as large as 20 wavelengths. The formulas are used to obtain an optimum subreflector size which represents the best trade-off between losses due to subreflector diffraction and geometrical shadowing.