Multi-beam lens-reflector for satellite communications: Construction issues and ground plane effects

Author

Thornton, John ; White, Andy ; Gray, Derek

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electron., Univ. of York, York

fYear

2009

fDate

23-27 March 2009

Firstpage

1377

Lastpage

1380

Abstract

A two-layer hemispherical lens is reported which, combined with a ground plane, comprises the focusing aperture in a multi-beam scanning antenna. The 61 cm diameter lens was fabricated from polyethylene and polystyrene dielectrics. The finite ground plane introduces a scanning loss since its truncation effectively reduces the aperture area: the effect becomes significant at low elevation angles. This scanning loss was investigated from a theory for the aperture plane distribution; measurements with the lens; and numerical modeling using the commercial solver FEKO. The lens gain is 35.5 dBi at 11.5 GHz, equivalent to a dish of similar area.

Keywords

dielectric bodies; lens antennas; multibeam antennas; reflector antennas; satellite communication; scanning antennas; ground plane effect; multibeam lens-reflector scanning antenna; polyethylene dielectrics; polystyrene dielectrics; satellite communication; size 61 cm; Apertures; Dielectric losses; Fasteners; Lenses; Loss measurement; Phased arrays; Polyethylene; Satellite antennas; Satellite broadcasting; Satellite communication;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Antennas and Propagation, 2009. EuCAP 2009. 3rd European Conference on

Conference_Location

Berlin

Print_ISBN

978-1-4244-4753-4

Electronic_ISBN

978-3-00-024573-2

Type

conf

Filename

5067871