A comparison of physical optics and geometrical optics methods for computation of reflector surface error effects

Author

Smith, W.T. ; Stutzman, W.L.

Author_Institution

Bradley Dept. of Electr. Eng., Virginia Polytech. Inst. & State Univ., Blacksburg, VA, USA

fYear

1989

fDate

9-12 Apr 1989

Firstpage

214

Abstract

Two major techniques for analyzing reflector antennas are geometrical optics/aperture integration (GO/AI) and physical optics/aperture integration (PO/AI). PO/AI calculations were compared to GO/AI calculations for the important case of evaluating large distorted reflector antennas. It was hoped that PO/AI would show significant improvement over GO/AI. In particular, the NASA four-quadrant, 15-m hoop-column antenna is analyzed. The calculations based on PO agree with measured results slightly better than calculations based on GO for near-in sidelobes and agree somewhat better than calculations based on GO for the sidelobes known to be influenced by surface pillowing. However, it is concluded that the overall improvement in the agreement to measured results offered by PO/AI over GO/AI for the distorted reflector is not significant

Keywords

antenna radiation patterns; geometrical optics; physical optics; reflector antennas; 15 m; NASA; aperture integration; distorted reflector; geometrical optics; hoop-column antenna; near-in sidelobes; physical optics; reflector antennas; reflector surface error effects; surface pillowing; Apertures; Artificial intelligence; Geometrical optics; Magnetic analysis; Optical computing; Optical distortion; Optical surface waves; Physical optics; Physics computing; Reflector antennas;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Southeastcon '89. Proceedings. Energy and Information Technologies in the Southeast., IEEE

Conference_Location

Columbia, SC

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/SECON.1989.132362

Filename

132362