Design and Implementation of Dual Mode Feed Horn for

Broadband Wireless Local Loop Antenna

*Woon Geun Yang, Sung Sik Kong, Won Kew Lee, Byung KuNah, De& Sun Kim
Department of Electronics Engineering, University of Incheon, Incheon,
402-749, Korea, wgyang@incheon.ac.kr
Hankook Antenna Co. Ltd., Bucheon, 420-130, Korea
1 Introduction
The electrical design of primary feed antennas involves a number of dependent
factors. A primary feed can be any type of elementary antenna: dipole, slot, hom, and
so on. And the principal characteristics to consider are matching of the feed to the feed
guide, radiation pattern, polarization etc.
Although a conical hom antenna as primaly feed for reflector antenna has
characteristics of axis symmetry beam, its beamwidth of E-plane and H-plane is. not
equal and sidelobe level is very high. These problems could be solved with multimode
or dual modehom antenna. A corrugated hom antenna among the various multimode
hom antennas has profitable characteristics such as axis symmetry beamwidth and
excellent cross polarization property, but it has disadvantages of heavy weight, big
size and difficulties in fabrication process[ 13.
In this paper, we designed dual mode horn antenna as a primary feed for broadband
wireless local loop(24.25-26.7GHz) antenna. The dual mode homwas first descibed
by P. D. Potter[2]. This homhas a very simple design. It may be used as feed element
in reflector antennas where low cross polarization property is required. As the
radiation pattern of this simple homis almost rotationally symmetrical, it may also
replace the single conical hom to obtain a higher aperture efficiency of the reflector[3-
51. If weconsider the cross-polar component and sidelobe, a dual mode homwould be
a good choice. A most important application of a dual mode hom is as a feed of
cassegrain reflector or parabolic reflector, built, and tested with relatively good
success in their performance.
2 Dual Mode Horn Antenna
A dual mode horn antenna exhibits suppressed sidelobe, equal beamwidth, and
reduced cross-polarization. Fig. 1 shows how the superposition the over the circular
guide aperture of modes TEII and TMll allows us to obtain an approximately
circularly symmetric illumination with almost zero cross polarization. These two
modes are excited in the hom aperture with the appropriate relative amplitude and
phase to effect sidelobe suppression, beamwidth equalization and the cross
polarization suppression[2,5-71.
This work was supported in part by theKoreaScienceand Engineering Foundation(K0SEF) through the
MultimediaResearch Center at University of Incheon.
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@7803-7330-8/02$17.0002002C02 IEEE
To achieve a desired radiation characteristic, it is necessary to choose the type of horn;
the dimensions and geometry of the radiating aperture; the geometry of the flared
section coupling the waveguide feeder to the radiating section; and to design the throat
of the horn to provide appropriate matching and to avoid the generation of unwanted
higher-order modes[6,7].
DUAL-MODE
Fig. 1. Radiation characteristics of dual mode hom. (a) Radiation pattems, and (b)
Aperture electric field distribution for the TE, I and TM, I mode.
3 Simulation, Implementation and Measurement
The primary importance was given to the VSWR and radiation properties within the
operating frequency band for our design. Test and adjustment was made for primary
feed hom, which was assembled with cassegrain type reflector[8].
A Simulation for dual mode horn antenna
By using FEM(Finite Element Method) simulation software, Ansoft HFSS, weget the
suitable values of homantenna for Fig. 2(a) to meet the required specification. Fig. 2
shows drawing and modeling of antenna, and simulation results. The sizes of the
antenna are R1=4.45mm, R2=8.15mm, LI=30.50mm, L2=26.63mm, and a =6.92" for
Fig. 2 (a). The hom antenna was designed as tapered type hom, which was connected
with input waveguide of rectangular type as a flange. Simulation results show gain,
cross polarization, and sidelobe level. Fig. 2 shows that sidelobe level is less than
approximately -25dB and cross polarization is less than -30dB.
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Fig. 2. Simulation results for dual mode horn antenna. (a) A drawing, (b) Modeling,
(c) Gain pattern, and (d) Normalized gain pattern and cross polarization.
Implementation and Measurement for dual mode horn antenna B
Implemented samples are tested by using an HP 8510C network analyzer and Near-
field system. The experimental results of antenna for broadband wireless loci11 loop
are as follows.
Fig. 3 shows measured electrical characteristics such as St, , impedance loci, VSWR.
They show relatively good performances. The measured VSWR is less than 1.5 for all
frequency bands of broadband wireless local loop.
.SI. ...-
"....
( 4 (b) (c)
Fig. 3. Measured characteristics for a primary feed horn. (a) SI!, (b) Impedance loci,
and (c) VSWR.
Fig. 4 shows measured near field data with characteristics of nearly symmetric beam
pattern.
(a) (b) (c)
Fig. 4. Measured near field characteristics for implemented horn. (a) 3-D
Radiation pattern, (b) X-axis, and (c) Y-axis.
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(a) (b)
Fig. 5. Developed antenna sample. (a) Developed primary feed horn, and (b) The
assembled antenna with reflector.
Fig. 5 shows a developed primary feed horn, and photograph of assembled antenna
with reflector. We have tried many hom samples and the shown feed is one of them.
Dimensional constraints with cassegrain type reflector and amplifier made some
limitation to improvement of performance.
4 Conclusion
In this paper, the dual mode feed horn for broadband wireless local loop antenna was
designed by using simulation programand implemented. The implemented antenna
was adjusted to get the proper electrical characteristics and radiation pattern
properties. And the finally developed antenna is a cassegrain type, which consists of
primary feed horn, main reflector and sub-reflector and is aimed at high gain.
The designed hom shows cross polarization and sidelobe characteristics which are less
than -30dB and -25dB respectively. The developed dual mode hom shows that
VSWR is less than 1.5 which is suitable characteristics for commercial application.
The VSWR of assembled antenna was less than 2.0 for all frequency bands of
broadband wireless local loop, and its measured gain was above than 35dBi, which is
sufficient for practical application.
References
[l ] Constantine A. Balanis, Horn Antennas, Chapter 8 in Antenna Handbook:
Volume 2, VanNostrand Reinhold, 1997.
[2] P. D. Potter, A New Hom Antenna with Suppressed Side Lobes and Equal
Beamwidths, Microwave Journal, pp.71-78, J une 1963.
[3] S. Drabowitch, A. Papiernik, H. Griffiths, J . Encinas and Bradford L. Smith,
Primary feeds, Chapter 8 in Modern Antennas, Chapman & Hall, 1998.
[4] A. W. Love, A. W. Rudge and A. D. Olver, Primary f eed antennas, Chapter 4 in
The Handbook OfAntenna Design: volume I , Peter Pergrinus, 1982.
[5] Erik Liker, Cross Polarization from Dual Mode Hom Antennas, IEEE
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1986.
[6] A. W. Love, Electromagnetic Horn Antennas, The Institute of Electrical and
Electronics Engineers, 1976.
[7] A. W. Love, Some highlights in reflector antenna development, Radio Sci., vol.
[SI W. G. Yang, S. S. Kong, B. K. Nah, N. J . Bae, D. S. Kim, Development of B-
11, pp.671-684, Aug. 1976.
WLL Antenna, Proc. ofICEIC 2000, pp.338-341, Aug. 2000.
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