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diation. The current distribution, the input impedance, the axial ratio, the radiation pattern, and the power gain are rigorously studied. A 14.6 % 3-dB axial ratio bandwidth is obtained with a five-turn antenna. The power gain remains relatively stable with the number of turns of the helix and with frequency. The radiation patterns typically consist of a large smooth main lobe with almost no sidelobes. REFERENCES
[1] J. D. Kraus, Antennas. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1988. [2] H. E. King and J. L. Wong, Characteristics of 1 to 8 wavelength uniform helical antennas , IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. AP-28, pp. 291296, Mar. 1980. [3] H. Nakano, H. Takeda, T. Honma, H. Mimaki, and J. Yamauchi, Extremely low-profile helix radiating a circularly polarized wave , IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. 39, pp. 754757, June 1991. [4] J. M. Tranquilla and S. R. Best, A study of the quadrifilar helix antenna for Global Positioning System applications, IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. 38, pp. 15451550, Oct. 1990. [5] J. C. Cardoso and A. Safaai-Jazi, Spherical helical antenna with a circular polarization over a broad beam, Electron. Lett., vol. 29, pp. 325326, 1993. [6] H. T. Hui, K. Y. Chan, E. K. N. Yung, and X. Q. Sheng, The coaxial-feed axial mode hemispherical helical antenna, Electron. Lett., vol. 35, pp. 19821983, 1999. [7] R. F. Harrington, Field Computation by Moment Methods. New York: IEEE Press, 1993. [8] H. Nakano, H. Takeda, Y. Kitamura, H. Mimaki, and J. Yamauchi, Lowprofile helical array antenna fed from a radial waveguide, IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. 40, pp. 279284, Mar. 1992. [9] H. Nakano, S. Okuzawa, K. Ohishi, H. Mimaki, and J. Yamauchi, A curl antenna, IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. 41, pp. 15701575, Nov. 1993.

Fig. 6. Input impedance of a five-turn hemispherical helical antenna with 0.5 cm, = 1.95 cm, = 0.05 cm, and = 4 5 .

Fig. 7. Radiation patterns of a five-turn hemispherical helical antenna over the plane with = 0 and 180 and the dimensions are = 1.14, = 1.95 cm, = 0.5 cm, = 0.05 cm, and = 4 5 .

Comprehensive Analysis and Simulation of a 118 GHz Broadband Parabolic Reflector Horn Antenna System
Christian Bruns, Pascal Leuchtmann, and Rdiger Vahldieck

conditions for circular polarization radiation produced by a wire antenna [9] and a very low axial ratio of 0.5 dB is obtained. Fig. 6 shows the measured and calculated input impedance of a five-turn antenna with C=. It can be seen that within the 3-dB axial-ratio bandwidth (C= = 1.1 to 1.28), the input resistance (measured) varies from 175
to 75
while the input reactance (measured) changes from -160
to -80
. We further found that when the number of turns of the hemispherical helix increases, the input impedance changes more rapidly with C=. C. Radiation Pattern The calculated and measured radiation patterns of a five-turn hemispherical helical antenna are shown in Fig. 7 over the plane with  = 0 and 180 . The radiation patterns consist of a large main lobe with almost no sidelobes. This characteristic persists over a wide C= range from C= = 1.1 to C= = 1.5 and over the number of turns of the helix from N = 3 to N = 8. The half-power beamwidths are measured to be 71 for E and 85 for E . IV. CONCLUSION The hemispherical helical antenna is rigorously studied both theoretically and experimentally. This antenna provides a robust and low-profile structure with a wide angular coverage of circular polarization ra-

AbstractA 118 GHz parabolic reflector horn antenna system featuring a broadband double ridged primary horn with a coaxial feed line is investigated. For the ridged horn antenna it is found that the radiation pattern, contrary to common believe, does not maintain a single main lobe in the direction of the horn axis over the whole frequency range. Instead, at frequencies above 12 GHz the main lobe in the radiation pattern starts to split into four lobes pointing in off-axis directions with a dip of up to 6 dB between them along the center axis. To investigate this phenomenon in detail, a combined method of moments and physical optics approach has been adopted to simulate the complete antenna system. Index TermsBroadband ridged horn antenna, method of moments (MoM), parabolic reflector, physical optics (PO), radiation pattern deterioration.

I. INTRODUCTION Horn antennas are widely used devices in applications such as standard measurement equipment, electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) testing, radar, and communication systems. Generally they are simple
Manuscript received January 26, 2001; revised November 19, 2001. The athors are with the nstitut fr Feldtheorie und Hchstfrequenztechnik, ETH Zurich, Zurich 8092 Switzerland (e-mail: bruns@ifh.ee.ethz.ch). Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TAP.2003.812236

0018-926X/03$17.00 2003 IEEE

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to build, provide very good directional performance and show excellent peak power handling capability. To extend the maximum usable bandwidth (MUB) of horns from typically 2:1. . .8:1 to, e.g., 18:1, ridges are introduced in the flared part of the antenna. Their effect is known from waveguides to lower the cutoff frequency of the fundamental mode, and thus expand the single mode range before higher order modes occur [1]. The same effect is exploited in ridged horn antennas [2]. The main motivation to ensure single mode operation over the largest possible bandwidth compared to standard horns without ridges is twofold: First, since the design of this antenna type dates back to the late 1950s, numerical field solvers were unavailable at that time and the workhorse to calculate and design these antennas was RF network theory, which is based on single mode propagation [2]; secondly, propagation of higher order modes, if not properly taken into account, will lead to undesired effects in the radiation characteristics of the antenna. This is typically the case at frequencies higher than 1214 GHz, for a 118 GHz horn, as shown in this paper. Single mode based RF network theory does not account for these effects and is thus useless for the design of ridge horn antennas with such wide bandwidths. Also more advanced methods such as the Chu-formulation or the E field model [3] are not suitable for predicting accurately enough, e.g., the current densities within the ridge horn antenna or its radiation characteristics. These methods are to a large extent semi-analytical and require significant simplifications of the antenna geometry before they can be applied (e.g., they are not capable of including the coaxial feed network). Broadband ridged horns are standard components that can be bought off the shelf from different antenna manufacturers. However, regardless of the manufacturer, all 118 GHz ridged horn antennas investigated by the authors exhibited the same deterioration of the radiation pattern as well as gain loss over a large range of higher frequencies (Table I). These problems are not mentioned in any manufacturers data sheet, instead the antennas are usually delivered with an approximate gain curve being the only specification. Deterioration of the radiation pattern is of particular concern for those applications where one relies on a well-behaved pattern such as in EMC testing, primary reflector feeds or standard gain horns. In the past, several electromagnetic simulations of ridged horn antennas were published, but not over such a broad frequency range and also not including the coaxial feed or a parabolic reflector system, e.g., [4][6]. For the reasons outlined above, the decision was made to use a combination of MoM and PO to carry out a complete broadband simulation of the ridged feed horn including the coaxial excitation and the parabolic reflector [7], [8]. II. ANTENNA MODEL AND NUMERICAL PROCEDURE The ridged horn consists of a coaxial type N input connector, a cavity below the coaxial input section, two exponentially shaped ridges, two lower as well as upper H plane flares and two wedges (Fig. 1). The specially manufactured type N connector used for this antenna is a high precision connector to prevent the excitation of higher order modes up to 20 GHz and to support a maximum power level of 5 kW. The boxed dimensions of the horn are 184 2 126 2 112 mm3 . Modeling of the horn antenna was performed using the commercial electromagnetic simulation software FEKO [9]. Symmetries were used in the modeling process to keep the computational effort within acceptable limits. The model of the horn antenna without the reflector consists of 9 492 perfectly electrically conducting (PEC) metallic triangles. Triangulation and wire segmentation refinement were adjusted so that the numerical conditions (such as area and length discretization with respect to the frequency) imposed by MoM are fulfilled for the maximum operating frequency of 18 GHz and so that the problem can be solved within reasonable CPU time. To eliminate the generation of

TABLE I COMPARISON OF E-/H-PLANE PATTERN DETERIORATION BETWEEN HORN ANTENNAS OF DIFFERENT MANUFACTURERS

Fig. 1. Simulation model of the 118 GHz broadband ridged horn antenna. Note the coaxial input section (bottom left) and the two exponentially shaped ridges.

electromagnetic artifacts resulting from different geometry discretizations, the values for the triangulation and segmentation were kept constant throughout the 118 GHz range. For this reason, the surface discretization in the coaxial feed section will appear to be rather coarse as compared to its actual size (Fig. 2). Eight different feed networks were closely investigated with respect to their ability to excite a pure TEM wave on the coaxial feed line without the existence of common modes and current loops, which is generally a nontrivial problem for MoM codes [7]. The feeding method yielding by far the best and most reasonable results was the configuration consisting of hollow, eight-cornered inner and outer conductors powered by eight (oriented in a radial direction) equally spaced cophasal voltage sources (Fig. 2). The parabolic reflector measures d = 1.8 m in diameter and has a center hole of 0.1 m, its f=d ratio equals 0.27 (f is the focal distance) and the subtended half angle is 74 . It was modeled so that the maximum area occurring in the largest triangles was forced to be close to 2 =10 (which is the constraint imposed by the implementation of MoM in FEKO). In total, 124 404 PEC metallic triangles were needed to accurately model the parabolic reflector including the feed horn (Fig. 3). As shown in the following paragraph, the simulation of the complete antenna system was accomplished using an approach which decouples MoM and PO [8]. A. Horn Antenna Feed The MoM technique is used to directly solve the electric field integral equation (EFIE) on the discretized surface of the horn antenna.

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Fig. 2. Coaxial input section in the model of the broadband ridged horn antenna. The source elements are situated radially between inner and outer coaxial conductor.

Fig. 4. H plane radiation pattern of the feed horn at 5 GHz (without gaps).

incident field was a plane wave impinging onto a PEC surface and can be derived from

~ inc ~  = 21~ n2H ~ inc is the magnetic field strength of the incident, undisturbed where H wave and ~ n represents a unity vector pointing perpendicular into the surrounding space from the reflector surface. The major part of the scattered field will be radiated into free space, whereas a small fraction of this field is reflected back into the feed horn. As the latter part is small enough in our case, the original current distribution on the feed horn is not disturbed which is consequently also true for the primary field radiated by the horn. Therefore, radiation and interaction effects between the scattered (i.e. the secondary) field and the feed horn do not have to be taken into account. Utilizing this MoM/PO decoupling technique, the computational time only increases by a factor of three, while the number of triangles is 12 times greater for the complete antenna system compared to the stand-alone feed horn.
III. SIMULATION AND MEASUREMENT RESULTS A. Horn Antenna Feed Measurements of the feed horn radiation pattern and the gain within the 118 GHz range were carried out in an anechoic chamber both in the E and H plane. The radiation patterns were recorded with an angular resolution of 3 over a 180 spatial range and compared to the simulation results derived with the MoM approach. Only exemplary results exhibiting typical phenomena and problems are presented here. Fig. 4 shows the radiation pattern derived at 5 GHz in the H plane of the broadband ridged feed horn antenna. With the exception of the deviations in the outermost angular range, the agreement between simulation and measurement is very good. The differences at the outer angles are a result of the inequality of the space surrounding the feed horn in the simulation scenario and the measurement setup (numerically infinitely extended space versus finite anechoic chamber volume). Due to the maximum usable distance inside the anechoic chamber, also the plane wave far field condition will be violated for frequencies f > 12 GHz, which results in incorrect measurements especially in the lower side lobe region. After the evaluation of all simulated and measured radiation patterns it can be generally stated that the agreement is very good both in the E and H plane for all frequencies lower or equal to approximately 12 GHz. For frequencies greater than 12 GHz, however, the discrepancy between simulated and measured radiation patterns was considerable. The ridged horn antenna was carefully examined to pinpoint possible features distinguishing the real antenna from the ideal simulation model. Since the ridged horn cannot be made from one piece but is assembled from several subsections, it was quickly found that the

Fig. 3. Model of the parabolic reflector antenna system featuring the primary feed horn.

Point matching as well as the method of weighted residuals is then applied, which yields the final current density distribution on the metallic triangles and the wire segments of the feed horn, respectively, [7]. This full-wave approach requires approximately 1.6 GByte of main memory for the matrix inversion that is needed in the process of the numerical evaluation for 9492 PEC metallic triangles. Problems and erroneous field results can arise from the exclusive usage of the EFIE if the discretized geometry is highly complex and the EFIE is used at its mathematical limitations. An example are current loops on very small parts of the structure, which do not make sense from an electromagnetic point of view but still can exist in the simulation model since they do not violate the conditions imposed by the EFIE [7]. Therefore, all results were carefully checked for erroneous current distributions. The solution to this problem would be to use both the EFIE and the magnetic field integral equation (MFIE). This, however, would lead to a significantly longer computation time and was, therefore, not implemented in the algorithm. B. Complete Parabolic Reflector Antenna System Due to the very large number of 124 404 metallic triangles for the complete antenna system in this simulation and in view of our limited computational resources, the MoM is used exclusively for the currents on the feed horn whereas the PO is employed for the parabolic reflector only. This decoupling approach assumes that the horn antenna acts on the parabolic reflector, but that there is no effect of the currents on the reflector toward the horn [8]. The parabolic reflector is treated as a scatterer, which is illuminated by the primary field produced by the feed horn. The resulting scattered field which is computed from the surface current distribution ~  induced on the reflector is added to the primary field. The surface current distribution is determined as if the

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Fig. 5. E plane radiation pattern of the feed horn at 15 GHz.

Fig. 7. 3-D logarithmic radiation pattern of the stand-alone feed horn at 15 GHz (color indicates gain, red being equal to the maximum gain).

Fig. 6. 3-D logarithmic radiation pattern of the stand-alone feed horn at 10 GHz (color indicates gain, red being equal to the maximum gain).

mechanical accuracy of the subsections did not match standard Swiss precision. The bottom of the cavity and also the flaps were not connected properly, exhibiting a gap of 0.050.5 mm to the neighboring structures. These gaps have been included in the refined antenna model (labeled as gap simulation in the radiation patterns) and proved to have a significant influence on the simulation results (Fig. 5). The best agreement between measurement and simulation results of the radiation pattern considering the aforementioned gaps is achieved at around 15 GHz in the E plane. As it was mentioned before, all of the 118 GHz ridged horn antennas investigated by the authors displayed a significant pattern deterioration at higher frequencies. This deterioration, which results in a sudden gain reduction in the E/H plane measurements, can be nicely visualized in a three dimensional (3-D) simulated radiation pattern plot. For frequencies below 12 GHz, the radiation pattern looks as expected from a typical horn antenna, i.e. it has one dominant main lobe (Fig. 6). At 15 GHz, however, Fig. 7 shows a pattern with quite undesirable characteristics: The single main lobe is now split into four large side lobes that grow equally spaced around the 0 center axis while the main lobe is strongly indented. Since the radiation pattern is measured in practice only in the E and H plane, measurements will consequently show a sudden gain drop in the graph for the broadside direction only; the large side lobes, however, will not be measured in a standard E/H plane testing setup. In order to confirm the existence of these side lobes, the measurement setup was changed and the horn antenna brought into a 45 azimuthally slanted position. An experimental verification of the

Fig. 8. GHz.

45 azimuthally slanted plane radiation pattern of the feed horn at 15

3-D pattern was carried out and the presence of the off-axis side lobes confirmed (Fig. 8). B. Complete Parabolic Reflector Antenna System To fulfill the far-field condition, radiation pattern and gain measurements of the complete antenna system were carried out in an outdoor testing range between two hills in Switzerland (distance 1760 m). The antenna system was mounted on a turntable trailer together with a high precision laser gyro-compass capable of measuring angular movements with a resolution of 0.001 . Radiation pattern measurements were recorded with an angular resolution of 0.5 over a 10 spatial range, which equals the width of interest for a typical pencil-beam application. To examine the influence of the earths ground and the environmental surrounding, the radiation pattern of the antenna was measured in horizontal (H) and vertical (V) orientation (referring to the E plane with respect to the ground) and swept in elevational (Elev) as well as azimuthal (Azi) direction (Fig. 9 and Fig. 10). The deviation of the simulated from the measured radiation pattern is due to the influence of the earths surface as a plane with finite conductivity as well as the exclusion of the outside measurement environment in the electromagnetic simulations. In addition, the refined model of the feed horn does still not reproduce the original antenna correctly in every detail.

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related to the failure to suppress or to manipulate the propagation of higher order modes above this frequency, so that their detrimental effect is minimized. This in turn is due to an insufficient design, which seems to be widespread among commercially available 118 GHz horn antennas according to our investigations. IV. CONCLUSION We presented the electromagnetic simulation of a 118 GHz broadband parabolic reflector antenna system with a ridged waveguide primary feed horn including coaxial excitation. Our numerical simulations have been supported by measurements. This is the first time that such a complete antenna system was simulated in one step over the entire frequency range. This was possible utilizing the computational decoupling technique of the two numerical methods MoM and PO. It was found that for satisfactory antenna performance, small geometric tolerances of the ridged waveguide horn must be maintained and that the introduction of tiny mechanical imperfections into the simulation model significantly enhances the agreement between simulations and measurements. Furthermore, our research indicates that all similarly designed broadband ridged horns exhibit the same performance degradation, as they fail to effectively suppress the propagation of higher order modes. Nevertheless, manufacturers of these antennas continue to advertise them as suited for application over the full 118 GHz range. ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Fig. 10. Radiation pattern of the complete antenna system at 16 GHz (E plane).

Fig. 9. Radiation pattern of the complete antenna system at 10 GHz (H plane).

This insufficiency is a tradeoff between computational power, duration of the simulation for one frequency and the desired accuracy. A direct qualitative comparison of the radiation pattern from the feed horn alone and the parabolic reflector antenna system exhibits the following characteristics: From 14 GHz the reflected pattern shows great similarity to the one created by the feed horn alone, as one would expect. Starting already at 5 GHz, however, there is a significant reduction of gain in the direction of the center axis in the combined horn/reflector configuration, which does not show up in the horn stand-alone setup. As the frequency is further increased, two main lobes together with small pits start to develop around the center axis along with several side lobes in the outer regions. The pattern resulting from the parabolic reflection is generally even more deteriorated than the original pattern with respect to the smoothness and pencil-beam like shape in the center axis direction. As the original manufacturers broadband feed horn was of very poor mechanical accuracy, a new model of the ridged horn antenna was fabricated with high precision in our own workshop. Both the commercial antenna and our prototype were used as feeding elements of the parabolic reflector and compared against each other. A benchmark test between these two revealed that our precision antenna delivers a radiation pattern of much greater symmetry, enhanced gain and less pattern deterioration for higher frequencies as compared to the commercial horn antenna. It should be noted, however, that the pattern deterioration did not vanish completely, the main beam still splits into four large side lobes at around 13 GHz. Our simulations show that this is clearly

The authors would like to thank Dr. U. Jakobus of Electromagnetic Software and Systems (EMSS) Ltd., South Africa, for many helpful discussions and exchange of ideas concerning the software package FEKO. REFERENCES
[1] S. Hopfer, The design of ridged waveguides, IRE Trans. Microw. Theory Tech., vol. 3, pp. 2029, Oct. 1955. [2] K. L. Walton and V. C. Sundberg, Broadband ridged horn design, Microw. J., pp. 96101, Mar. 1964. [3] N. A. Adatia, A. W. Rudge, and C. Parini, Mathematical modeling of the radiation fields from primary feed antennas, in Proc. IEEE Symp. Electromagnetic Compatibility, Copenhagen, Denmark, Sept. 1977, pp. 329333. [4] C. Reig and E. Navarro, FDTD analysis of E-sectoral horn antennas for broadband applications, IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. 45, pp. 14841487, Oct. 1997. [5] R. Bunger, R. Beyer, and F. Arndt, Rigorous combined mode-matching integral equations analysis of horn antennas with arbitrary cross section, IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. 47, pp. 16411648, Nov. 1999. [6] A. K. Bhattacharyya and G. Z. Rollins, Accurate radiation and impedance characteristics of horn antennasa moment-method model, IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. 44, no. 4, pp. 523531, Apr. 1996. [7] G. J. Burke and E. K. Miller, A mesh model of a coaxial transmission line using NEC, in Proc. 6th Applied Computational Electromagnetics Conf., Monterey, CA, March 1990, pp. 131140. [8] L. Diaz and T. Milligan, Antenna Engineering Using Physical Optics: Practical CAD Techniques and Software. Norwood, MA: Artech House, 1996, ch. 6, pp. 193210. [9] FEKOField Computations Involving Objects of Arbitrary Shape, U. Jakobus et al.. (2000). www.feko-usa.com [Online]