This communication deals with simultaneous generation of a contoured and a pencil beam from a single shaped reflector with two feeds. A novel concept of generating a high gain pencil beam from a shaped reflector is presented using focal plane conjugate field matching method. The contoured beam is generated from the shaped reflector by introducing deformations in a parabolic reflector surface. This communication proposes a simple method to counteract the effects of shaping and generate an additional high gain pencil beam from the shaped reflector. This is achieved by using a single feed which is axially and laterally displaced from the focal point. The proposed method is successfully applied to generate an Indian main land coverage contoured beam and a high gain pencil beam over Andaman Islands. The contoured beam with peak gain of 33.05 dBi and the pencil beam with 43.8 dBi peak gain is generated using the single shaped reflector and two feeds. This technique saves mass and volume otherwise would have required for feed cluster to compensate for the surface distortion.Index Terms-Conjugate field matching, contoured beam, pencil beam, reflector surface distortion compensation, shaped reflector.

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This paper reports design and development of an innovative compact Stepped Truncated-Circular Waveguide Branching Ortho-Mode Transducer (STCWB-OMT) operating at 4.5-4.8 GHz for horizontal and vertical polarizations. STCWB-OMT is derived by introducing branch waveguide via coupling slot on a stepped truncatedcircular waveguide. This configuration possesses inbuilt rectangularto-circular transition; therefore it does not require any additional square-to-circular transition to combine it with horn antenna. The challenge in the design incorporated is to obtain a mechanically compact design with low mass while compliant with the specified electrical performances; since this device is developed for space-borne application. Achieved return losses at both direct and coupled ports are > 17 dB, insertion losses < 0.08 dB for both polarizations, isolation is < −60 dB and cross-polarization discrimination > 40 dB with the OMT length = 1.98λ at center frequency and weight = 250 gm The agreement between measured and computed results provides a validation of the proposed OMT configuration.

A waveguide shunt slot-fed microstrip patch antenna (WGMPA) element is proposed and analyzed with method of moments (MOM) using entire-domain basis functions. The developed analysis has been utilized to obtain parametric observation of power-coupling versus transverse offset of feeding slot from the waveguide axis. Expressions for the radiation pattern as a summation of contributions of individual basis functions are reported. The proposed element is amenable to building-up series-fed linear arrays by a simple cascading of elements at the through-end of the feeding waveguide. The authors propose that arbitrary amplitude excitations may be applied to such linear arrays for desired tailored array pattern characteristics. The required transverse offsets for each array element may be computed using the reported parametric result. As a demonstration of concept, two distributions are designed – uniform amplitudes and Dolph–Chebyshev for reduced side lobes. Computed element patterns from MOM are used with an array factor formulation for arbitrary element positions. Both modules show radiation characteristics closely matching the expected directivity and sidelobe envelopes. Analysis validation is achieved using a proven finite element method (FEM)-based solver; the comparison is close and is reported. Efficacy of the waveguide shunt-slot fed patch element for building linear array modules with prescribed amplitude distributions is thus established.

This article outlines impact of various factors on cross-polarization characteristics of offset reflector antenna for communication spacecraft with smaller sized bus at C band. Effects of different parameters are considered in rigorous analysis of the antenna. Measured and predicted performances are found in agreement. To fulfill specific requirement of higher edge-of-coverage gain (>26 dBi) and higher cross-polarization discrimination (XPD > 30 dB) over a wider coverage and dual linear polarization under the imposed constraints, a novel trimmed-reflector offset parabolic antenna (TROPA) is devised. This interesting configuration is obtained by trimming both sides parallel to symmetrical plane of a parabolic offset reflector antenna. Parametric study of trimming distance versus its impact on cross-polarization is also presented. The TROPA acquires wider bandwidth, simplification in its mechanical design and manufacturing, and offers low weight and compactness. It is also shown that trimmed reflector has almost even RF performance in presence of spacecraft body and other antenna. V C 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J RF and Microwave CAE 00:000-000, 2012.