Corrugated horn with stable phase center for Ka‐band compact antenna test range measurement systems

Abstract

In this article, a corrugated horn feed antenna with a stable phase center is designed for the millimeter wave compact antenna test range (CATR). The calculation method of the phase center of a horn is analyzed in this article.The 45 -plane phase center is used as the combined phase center of the horn in order to perform the phase center calculation only once, thus faster, and to optimize the phase performance more conveniently. By adding an absorbing material surrounding the edge of the outer surface of the horn, the irregular currents on the outer surface of the horn are suppressed, thus achieving a more stable phase center. The absorbing material can also reduce the radar cross section of the antenna. The designed corrugated horn works in the 24-40 GHz wide band with the following performances: the deviation of the phase center in the working frequency band is less than ±0.25 mm, the phase variation within a ±30 beam width is less than ±2.5 . Moreover, the measured return loss is lower than À10 dB, the measured gain is 8-12 dBi, and the measured cross-polarization level is less than À30 dB. The beamwidth is about 56 -70 in the whole band, and the beamwidth difference between different planes is less than 5 . The achieved targets listed above makes the proposed corrugated horn suitable for very precise antenna measurements in CATR systems.

A high‐performance dual‐polarized corrugated horn for a compact antenna test range system

“…Considering the application scenario of the compact range system, the horizontal and vertical polarization ports of OMT are designed to be equipped with a WR28 waveguide. The mode converter realizes the mode conversion from square waveguide TE 10 to circular waveguide TE 11 17–20 . The axial corrugated horn only uses six corrugated slots to achieve symmetry radiation pattern.…”

“…The mode converter realizes the mode conversion from square waveguide TE 10 to circular waveguide TE 11 . [17][18][19][20] The axial corrugated horn only uses six corrugated slots to achieve symmetry radiation pattern. The proposed dual-polarized horn antenna has a bandwidth of impedance matching of 70%, stable halfpower beamwidth (HPBW), and low cross-polarization level, which is suitable for the millimeter wave CATR system.…”

Design of a compact antenna test range system based on reflectarray antenna

“…As antennas play an increasingly important role in modern electronic systems, antenna measurements are evolving dramatically. [1][2][3] Antenna measurement mainly includes three methods: far-field measurement, nearfield measurement, and compact range measurement. Traditional far-field measurement is to measure the farfield characteristics of antennas directly.…”