Improved diffraction model and numerical validation for horn antenna gain calculations

Abstract

In this study, the diffraction model for on-axis gain calculations of rectangular horn antennas has been improved, mainly through refining the expressions for the aperture fields of the horn to more accurately reflect the astigmatic nature of the wave that emanates from the throat of the horn. As the availability of accurate swept-frequency measurement results for horn antennas is very limited, the method of moments, employing the multilevel fast multipole method, has been used to validate the improved diffraction model for horn antennas with widely varying flare dimensions.

A Dirichlet to Neumann Map Based Hybridization of a Mode Matching and Offset Moment Method for Horn Antennas Analysis

“…Because horn antennas are very often used as gain references in antenna measurements, it is very useful to be able to calculate the horn gain as accurately as possible. It is well known that the gain exhibits an oscillatory behaviour [22,23].…”

“…Results for the gain of a pyramidal horn, proposed and analyzed by Mayhew-Ridgers et al [23] using the Diffraction Model, are compared against those of the present method. Figure 26 the present method are in good agreement with both measurements and those of the diffraction model, while the gain exhibits indeed an oscillatory behaviour.…”

Design of optimum gain pyramidal horn using self-adaptive differential evolution algorithms

“…In [9], closed-form expressions for the dimensions of a pyramidal horn of any desired gain and aperture phase error were given. The application of diffraction theory principles improved the design accuracy in [10].…”

“…In the published literature, we can find several approximate analytical methods for the design of pyramidal horns [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10]. In [1], an iterative trial and error technique was proposed for the design of optimum gain pyramidal horns.…”

Polynomial-Based Evaluation of the Impact of Aperture Phase Taper on the Gain of Rectangular Horns

“…Several solutions with increased accuracy can be found in the published literature, e.g. [13][14][15][16]. However, their complexity and computational cost are worthwhile only if we require very accurate results.…”