Synthesis of smooth wall compact and light-weight circular horns using the BoR-FDTD method

We describe in this paper a reliable, fast and accurate design tool for the analysis, optimisation and synthesis of axis-symmetrical antennas of arbitrary shape and constitutive materials. It is based on the combination of a FDTD kernel expressed in cylindrical coordinates with gradient methods, and binary- and real-coded genetic algorithms. To validate the numerical algorithms, several compact light-weight circular horns have been designed and compared in Ka-band. The use of metallised foam enables one to integrate phase correction lenses into the horn aperture in order to enhance the antenna gain while keeping a small size.