Description
The objective is to develop and demonstrate a new class of horn antennas for telecommunication applications based on conjugate-matched meta-surface technology, aiming at improving the flexibility of the design, while reducing complexity and possibly reducing their mass.
Targeted improvements: To reduce the mass and envelope by 20% and to improve the performance of horns for both global beam generation and for reflector antennas feeds. In the latter case the better illumination of the reflector also leads to an improvement in overall antenna performance.
Description:
The need for high performance horns is a long standing issue in the design of single and multiple beam reflector antennas for telecommunication applications. At the same time, global coverage horns are relatively long and bulky, despite their relatively simple pattern requirements. Several competing requirements limit the range of choices in both cases resulting in less than optimal performance.
The use of corrugation and steps to introduce longitudinal variations in the impedance of the horn walls and discontinuities in their profile have long been an effective way to control the guided field propagation and the horn radiation pattern. It has been shown that using meta-surfaces, instead of corrugations and steps or in combination with them, offers a significant increase in the available degrees of freedom for the horn design, and therefore better performance.
For example by making use of the existing theory and algorithms it is possible to obtain high polarisation purity and efficiency with very short horns operating over a large bandwidth, without the need for corrugations. Using meta-surfaces also offers the possibility to optimise the pattern more extensively than it is possible using current solutions (e.g. obtain moderately shaped beams without changing the basic structure of the horn).
It is therefore expected that the use of meta-surfaces will contribute to improve their performances, while potentially reducing their envelope and mass.
The activity will focus on the development and demonstration of horns for selected telecommunication application scenarios, looking at both reflector antennas and global coverage. In particular attention will be given to power-handling and arraying issues (for multiple beam antennas).