Chapter- Five

Reflector Antennas

By :- Bekele Alemayehu
Lecture Outline
⦿ Introduction
⦿ Types of Reflector Antenna
⦿ Analysis of Parabolic Antenna
• Geometrical characteristics
• Design Steps
• Antenna Parameters
• Applications
⦿ Summary

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 Introduction

⦿ Has high gain (>30 dB)

✔ Long distance radio communication
✔ High-resolution radars
✔ Radio-astronomy
⦿ Operates on the principles of geometrical optics

⦿ The 1st RF reflector system was made by Hertz

✔ Cylindrical reflector fed by a dipole
⦿ Designing accurate antennas started during the world war 2

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⦿ Reflector antenna has two main parts
✔ Reflector surface antenna
✔ Feeder antenna
Other additional parts are feeder cable, supporting truss …
⦿ Reflector Surfaces:
✔ Sheet metal type
• Solid metal surface
✔ Metal screen type (grid metal type )
• Solid metal surface with many holes on it

• Operates almost equivalent to solid metal sheet(if hole D <

1/10 of the wavelength)
• Reduce weight and wind loads

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✔ Wire grid type

• Made of a grid of parallel wires or bars

• Also acts as a polarizing filter

Only reflects linearly polarized radio waves with the electric

field parallel to the grill element.

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 Screen metal
Metal sheet

Wire grid type 6

⦿ Feeder:

✔ The main point of contact between the dish and the coaxial
cable/wave guide
✔ It is connected to the associated (RF) transmitting or
receiving equipment by means of coaxial cable, transmission
line or waveguide
✔ Horn antenna is the most popular feeder

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⦿ Radiation pattern of reflector antennas has narrow beam width

● defined as “pencil beam”

⦿ Reflector antenna can take various configuration

✓ parabolic, corner, plain, conical and spherical
⦿ Parabolic is most popular

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Antenna Mounts
An Earth station antenna typically requires rigid steel backup
structure combined with an accurate dish surface. They are
fitted with necessary bearings, gears, and drives to enable
pointing
Accuracy varies within few tenths of a degree.
The structure must also be able to withstand extreme
weather conditions, from excessive heat to cold and
hurricanes.

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 Mount Types: Three common antenna mount types are:
• XY mount
• AZ/EL mount
• Polar mount
XY Mount:
• This mount is used for medium-sized antennas. In this mount,
the lower axis (X) is parallel to the ground. Rotation about this
axis moves the antenna in elevation.
• The upper axis (Y) lies in a vertical plane, and is perpendicular
to the X-axis. The position of the Y-axis in the vertical plane
depends on the rotation of the X-axis, and can range from
vertical to horizontal.
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XY Antenna Mount
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AZ/EL Mount:
The location of a point on Earth can be described by using the
azimuth-over-elevation coordinate system.
Azimuth is defined as an angle produced by rotation about an
axis, which is perpendicular to the local horizontal plane.
The elevation axis rotates in the local horizontal plane as the
azimuth angle rotates.

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AZ/EL Antenna Mount
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Polar Mount:
A polar mount has two axes of rotation.
The first one is the hour angle axis, which is parallel to the
Earth's axis. It is inclined in the north-south direction from the
local horizontal through an angle equal to the latitude of the
site.
Therefore, the hour angle axis is parallel to the ground at the
equator and perpendicular to the ground at either the North or
the South Pole.

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Polar Antenna Mount
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 Types Of Reflector Antennas
1. Plane reflector antenna
2. Corner reflector antenna
3. Curved (Parabolic (dish))reflector antenna

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 Advantage and Disadvantage

⦿ Advantage
✔ It can be used both as transmitting antenna and receiving
antenna due to principle of reciprocity
✔ High gain
✔ High directivity
⦿ Disadvantages
✔ Requires reflector antenna and feed antenna
✔ Cost
✔ Size is big
✔ The design of parabolic reflector is a complex process.
✔ Surface distortion can occur in very large size dish.
✔ Need feed should be placed exactly at the focus of the
parabolic reflector antenna

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 1. Plane Reflector antenna
✔ Simplest type of reflector which introduced to direct energy in a
desired direction.
✔ Polarization of the radiating source and its position relative to
the reflecting surface controls the radiating properties
(propagation pattern, impedance, directivity) of the overall
system.

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⦿ To analyze the radiating characteristics of the system, we use
the image theory.
⦿ Image theory used to analyze the performance of antenna near
an infinite plane conductor.

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2. Corner Reflector
⦿ Two plane reflector joined to
form a corner
⦿ Simple construction

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⦿ Unique feature: return the received
signal in the same direction when
included angle is 90 degree.

⦿ Has unique applications: example

passive target for radar communication
and as receiver for home TV

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⦿ To maintain system efficiency

✔ S must increase when the included

angle decrease and vise versa
✔ For infinite side reflector, gain increase
when included angle decrease

⦿ Feed element is dipole or array of

dipole
⦿ Greater BW when cylindrical dipole is
used instead of thin wire dipole

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⦿ When the wavelength greater than the
physical dimensions, the surface of the
reflector made of grid wires.
⦿ Grid wires surface batter than
solid surface antenna are
✔ Reduce wind resistance and
✔ Overall system weight.
✔ Usually the gap is less or equal to
λ/10

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⦿ For wires that are parallel to the length of the dipole the reflectivity of
the grid-wire surface is as good as that of a solid surface.

⦿ In practice
✔ Included angle (α)=90 deg
✔ Aperture (Da): λ< Da < 2λ
✔ Length of side (L): L ≈ 2s, for small α, L made large
✓ Feed to vertex distance (s): λ/3< s < 2λ/3
✓ The height (h): 1.2 to 1.5 times grater than length of feed element. to
reduce radiation toward the back region from the end.

❖ Reading assignment ;α=90 deg corner reflector

antenna array factor computation
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 3. Parabolic Reflector
⦿ It is frequently referred to as a

dish antenna
⦿ The most well known reflector
antenna
⦿ Used to collect energy from
distant source and bring to
common focal point.

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⦿ Used in Micro wave radio communications

⦿ Has very high gain (30 -40 dB is common )

⦿ Low cross polarization

⦿ Very wide band in the case of huge dishes
⦿ The smaller dish antennas typically operate some where
between 2 and 28 GHz. The large dishes can operate in the
VHF region (30-300 MHz), but typically need to be
extremely large at this operating band

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⦿ The basic structure of parabolic dish antenna consists of a feed
antenna pointed towards a parabolic reflector. The feed antenna
is often a horn antenna with a circular aperture.

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Parabolic reflector surfaces

⦿ Energy is collimated at a line that

is parallel to the axis of the
cylinder

⦿ Formed by rotating the parabola

around its axis

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⦿ Wire grid parabolic reflectors
are used in some applications

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 Feeding Mechanisms
⦿ Front feed ⦿ Dual feed
Cassegrian and Gregorian feed

⦿ Offset feed

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Analysis of Parabolic (Dish) Antenna

Geometrical Optics: Beam of

parallel rays will converge at the
focal point and vice versa

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 Focus of parabolic antenna
⦿ Any point M(x ,y) is equidistant
from the focus and directrix .
⦿ Hence:
(x-0)2+(y-f)2=(x-x)2+(y-0))2

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⦿ More practically, given the
dimensions of the dish
⦿ The point (D/2,d) and (-D/2,d) are
on the parabola
d=(D/2)2/4f
f=D2/16d
⦿ Where d is the distance of the
vertex from the rim line(depth of
an antenna).
⦿ D is diameter of the antenna
⦿ f is focical point • Example: See your text

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 Surface Geometry ⦿ The surface of a paraboloidal
reflector is formed by rotating a
parabola about its axis
Choosing a plane perpendicular to the
axis of the reflector through the focus
OP+PQ=const=2f

This is the equation of a paraboloidal interms

of the spherical coordinates r’, θ’, φ’.
For rectangular coordinates x ‘, y’, z’. The
above equation is

✔ Snells law is Verified! with (x’)2 + (y’)2 ≤ (d/2)2

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Focal length to diameter ratio (f/D)

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⦿ Thus half of the subtended angle of the reflector is given by

• Example: See your text

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 Induced Current Density
⦿ Current density(Js)induced on its surface must be know to determine the
radiation characteristic.

where Hi and Hr represent, respectively, the incident and reflected magnetic

field components evaluated at the surface of the conductor, and nˆ is a
unit vector normal to the surface

⦿ The reflecting surface can be approximated by an infinite plane surface (this

condition is met locally for a parabola), then by the method of images

is known as the physical-optics

approximation

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Radiation Characteristics

⦿ We have two methods of analysis the performance of a reflector

system
Aperture distribution method
Current distribution method

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⦿ Aperture distribution method
Geometrical Optics Technique (ray tracing)
The plane is taken through the focal point, and it is designated as the
aperture plane
Equivalent sources are then formed over that plane
It is assumed that the equivalent sources are zero outside the projected
area of the reflector on the aperture plane
These equivalent sources are then used to compute the radiated fields
Advantage: integration over the aperture plane can be performed with
equal ease for any feed pattern or feed position

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⦿ Current distribution method
Induced current density Js given by the incident magnetic field
This current density is then integrated over the surface of the
reflector to yield the far-zone radiation fields(see the above
equation)
Approximations/assumptions
● The current density is zero on the shadow side (S2) of the reflector
● The discontinuity of the current density over the rim (Γ) of the
reflector is neglected
● Direct radiation from the feed and aperture blockage by the feed are
neglected
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⦿ Directivity
A very important figure of merit in antenna
⦿ To simplify the analysis, it will be assumed that the feed
pattern is
Circularly symmetric (not a function of φ)

Linearly polarized (in the y-direction) and

No cross-polarized field components

No blockage

No random errors at the surface of the reflector

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Using the above analysis methods, the radiation intensity
(power/unit solid angle) in the forward direction is

where

• Example: See your text

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 Directivity

is the directivity of a uniformly illuminated constant phase aperture.

remaining part is the aperture efficiency:-

Here we can see that directivity of parabolic antenna depends on

✔ Diameter (d) of the dish

✔ Frequency or wavelength of operation (f or λ)
✔ Aperture efficiency which in turn depends on
• The primary feed pattern
• Focal length to diameter ratio (f/d) or subtended angle θ0)
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⦿ Aperture Efficiency

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 Main factors that contribute to the aperture efficiency -
inherent primarily on the feed pattern.
The spill of efficiency and tapper efficiency is given by

✔ Spillover losses
✔ Non uniform amplitude distribution losses

and

εs : spillover efficiency
εt : taper efficiency

• Example: See your text

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⦿ Thus the losses in miss much is the following

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Aperture Efficiency

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As it is observed from the figure,
Very high spillover efficiency = by a narrow beam (n= large)
pattern with low minor lobes at the expense of a very low
taper efficiency
For a certain feed pattern, spillover efficiency can be achieved
by increasing reflector subtended angle (f/d) but still at the
cost of reduction in taper efficiency
The aperture efficiency for different feed pattern thus:

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Compromising the trade off

There is a best feed pattern for a specific dimension of

antenna (f/d) at which the combined efficiency will be
maximum

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 Other factors affecting aperture efficiency (read the detail )

Phase error

Due to
✔ displacement of the feed phase center from the focal point
✔ deviation of the reflector surface from a parabolic shape or
random errors at the surface of the reflector
✔ departure of the feed wave fronts from spherical shape

Surface roughness

σ - RMS deviation of the reflector surface from an ideal parabolic

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In practice, maximum reflector efficiencies are in the
65–80% range
Additional factors reduce the antenna gain , e.g attenuation
in the antenna feed and associated transmission line

Aa=πd²/4

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 Radiation Pattern

Assignment
Analyze Plot with Matlab

Antenna Bandwidth
✔ Dish antennas are wideband devices
✔ As seen from the gain equation, for a given diameter, the gain of a dish
will increase as the frequency of operation increases
✔ operation away from the design frequency will normally result in
impaired performance due to the limitations of the feed/launch system

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 Application of reflector antenna

⦿ Radar Communication
It is an object-detection system which uses radio wave to determine the
range, altitude, direction, or speed of objects.
The radar dish or antenna transmits pulses of radio waves which reflect
back any object in their path.
The object returns tiny fraction of the wave's energy .
The dish or antenna which is usually located at the same site as the
transmitter collects the reflected energy scattered from the radar target.
Then by some digital signal processing the required parameters are
determined.

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⦿ If Corner reflector is used as a passive target for radar or
communication applications, it will return the signal exactly in
the same direction as it received it when its included angle is
90◦.
1. Military ships and vehicles are design with minimum sharp
corners to reduce their detection by enemy radar.

2. In maritime navigation they are placed on bridge abutments,

buoys, ships and, especially, life boats, to ensure that these
show up strongly on ship radar screens.

⦿ Aircraft navigation, missile defense, space-based.

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⦿ Radio Astronomy: It is the study of space objects that emit radio
waves.
Earth’s atmosphere presents an opaque barrier to much of the
electromagnetic spectrum.
Pass( visible light, some ultraviolet and infrared, and short wave
radio).

Because of this barrier and dusts radio wave reach to earth become
weak.

radio wave (λ) =106 nm(1mm)-1012 nm(1km)

So the main use of parabolic antenna :to obtain large collecting
areas and gain

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⦿ Microwave communication

⦿ Satellite tracking

⦿ Deep-space communication
⦿ Satellite communication ( satellite television (TV)).
In all these applications very high levels of gain are required to
receive the incoming signals that are often at a very low level.
For transmitting antenna design is able to concentrate the
available radiated power into a narrow beam width, ensuring all
the available power is radiated in the required direction.

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Summary
The basics of reflector antenna(types, feeding techniques and
other parameters ) are discussed.

The surface geometry of parabolic antenna is analyzed

The directivity of parabolic antenna is derived and stated.

• Example: See Your text

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⦿ Assignment for exam preparation
⦿ 15.10,15.16,15.17,15.21,15.22,15.23,15.24

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