Reflector shaping in hybrid antennas for contoured beams

The authors describe a method of designing a reconfigurable antenna for satellite communication. This consists of a hybrid phase array fed reflector in which a small array illuminates a large aperture reflector. They also show in such systems, generalized reflector shaping can still be advantageous and describe how this additional degree of freedom provides control over the antenna geometry and feed array power distribution. The design process is in three stages and is discussed using an illustrative example. First a reflector aperture field is synthesised, which is then used as an input to the reflector synthesis. Reconfiguration is achieved by re-synthesis of the feed array phase. They conclude that geometrical optics reflector shaping can be used effectively in configurations with distributed sources, and that reflector shaping can be an advantage in array fed systems designed for reconfigurable contoured beams