Horn Antennas Lec4
17
EEE 3117 Antennas and Radiowave Propagation Dr. Kibet Langat 31 – 07 – 2012 Horn Antennas • Horn antenna represents a transition or matching section from the guided mode inside the waveguide to unguided (free-space) mode outside the waveguide. • Horn antenna, as a matching section, reduces reflections and leads to a lower SWR. • It is widely used as a feed element for large radio astronomy, satellite tracking, and communication dishes found installed throughout the world. • It is a common element of phased arrays and serves as a universal standard for calibration and gain measurements of other high gain antennas. • Its widespread applicability stems from its simplicity in construction, ease of excitation, versatility, large gain, and preferred overall performance. • EM horn can take many different forms, four of which are shown in Figure 1.1. • Horn is nothing more than a hollow pipe of different cross sections, which has been tapered (flared) to a larger opening. • Type, direction, and amount of taper (flare) can have an effect on overall performance of the element as a radiator.
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Lecture on Horn antennas
Transcript of Horn Antennas Lec4
EEE 3117 Antennas and Radiowave Propagation Dr. Kibet Langat 31 – 07 – 2012
Horn Antennas
• Horn antenna represents a transition or matching section from the guided modeinside the waveguide to unguided (free-space) mode outside the waveguide.
• Horn antenna, as a matching section, reduces reflections and leads to a lowerSWR.
• It is widely used as a feed element for large radio astronomy, satellite tracking,and communication dishes found installed throughout the world.
• It is a common element of phased arrays and serves as a universal standard forcalibration and gain measurements of other high gain antennas.
• Its widespread applicability stems from its simplicity in construction, ease ofexcitation, versatility, large gain, and preferred overall performance.
• EM horn can take many different forms, four of which are shown in Figure 1.1.• Horn is nothing more than a hollow pipe of different cross sections, which has
been tapered (flared) to a larger opening.• Type, direction, and amount of taper (flare) can have an effect on overall
performance of the element as a radiator.
EEE 3117 Antennas and Radiowave Propagation Dr. Kibet Langat 31 – 07 – 2012
• There are three basic types of horn antennas:• (a.) E-plane sectoral horn (flared in the direction of the E-plane only),• (b.) H-plane sectoral horn (flared in the direction of the H-plane only),• (c.) pyramidal horn antenna (flared in both the E-plane and H-plane).
• The flare of horns considered here is assumed to be linear although some hornantennas are formed by other flare types such as an exponential flare.
• Horn antenna is mounted on a waveguide that is almost always excited insingle-mode operation. i.e., waveguide is operated at a frequency above fc of theTE10 mode but below the fc of the next highest mode.
Figure 1.1 Typical electromagnetic horn antenna configurations.
EEE 3117 Antennas and Radiowave Propagation Dr. Kibet Langat 31 – 07 – 2012
E-PLANE SECTORAL HORN• E-plane sectoral horn is one whose opening is flared in direction of the E-field.• Horn can be treated as an aperture antenna.• To find its radiation characteristics, equivalent principle techniques can be
utilized. To develop an exact equivalent of it, it is necessary that the tangentialelectric and magnetic field components over a closed surface are known.
• The closed surface that is usually selected is an infinite plane that coincides withthe aperture of the horn.
• When the horn is not mounted on an infinite ground plane, the fields outside theaperture are not known and an exact equivalent cannot be formed. However, theusual approximation is to assume that the fields outside the aperture are zero.
EEE 3117 Antennas and Radiowave Propagation Dr. Kibet Langat 31 – 07 – 2012
EEE 3117 Antennas and Radiowave Propagation Dr. Kibet Langat 31 – 07 – 2012
• The fields at the aperture of the horn can be found by treating the horn as aradial waveguide. The fields within the horn can be expressed in terms ofcylindrical TE and TM wave functions which include Hankel functions. Thismethod finds the fields not only at the aperture of the horn but also within thehorn.
• It can be shown that if the (1) fields of the feed waveguide are those of itsdominant TE10 mode and (2) horn length is large compared to the aperturedimensions, the lowest order mode fields at the aperture of the horn are given by
EEE 3117 Antennas and Radiowave Propagation Dr. Kibet Langat 31 – 07 – 2012
• where E1 is a constant. The primes are used to indicate the fields at the apertureof the horn. The expressions are similar to the fields of a TE10-mode for arectangular waveguide with aperture dimensions of a and b1 (b1 > a). The onlydifference is the complex exponential term which is used here to represent thequadratic phase variations of the fields over the aperture of the horn.
• The necessity of the quadratic phase term in equ above can be illustratedgeometrically. Referring to Figure 1.2(b), let us assume that at the imaginaryapex of the horn (shown dashed) there exists a line source radiating cylindricalwaves. As the waves travel in the outward radial direction, the constant phasefronts are cylindrical.
• At any point y’ at the aperture of the horn, the phase of the field will not be thesame as that at the origin (y’ = 0). The phase is different because the wave hastraveled different distances from the apex to the aperture. The difference inpath of travel, designated as δ(y’), can be obtained by referring to Figure1.2(b). For any point y’
or
EEE 3117 Antennas and Radiowave Propagation Dr. Kibet Langat 31 – 07 – 2012
• Using binomial expansion and retaining only the first two terms of it reduces to
Example:Design an E-plane sectoral horn so that the maximum phase deviation at theaperture of the horn is 56.720. The dimensions of the horn are a = 0.5λ, b = 0.25λ,b1 = 2.75λ.
EEE 3117 Antennas and Radiowave Propagation Dr. Kibet Langat 31 – 07 – 2012
Radiated Fields• To find the fields radiated by the horn, only the tangential components of the E-
and/or H-fields over a closed surface must be known. The closed surface ischosen to coincide with an infinite plane passing through the mouth of the horn.To solve for the fields, an approximate equivalent is used.
• In the principal E- and H-planes, the electric field reduces to
EEE 3117 Antennas and Radiowave Propagation Dr. Kibet Langat 31 – 07 – 2012
Directivity• Directivity of E-plane sectoral horn is obtained by forming the maximum
radiation. That is,
• For most horn antennas |E|max is directed nearly along the z-axis (θ = 00). Thus,
EEE 3117 Antennas and Radiowave Propagation Dr. Kibet Langat 31 – 07 – 2012
• Using the expressions of
• thus
• Where
• The total power radiated can be found by simply integrating the average powerdensity over the aperture of the horn
EEE 3117 Antennas and Radiowave Propagation Dr. Kibet Langat 31 – 07 – 2012
• the directivity for the E-plane horn can be written as
H-PLANE SECTORAL HORN• Flaring the dimensions of a rectangular waveguide in the direction of the H-
field, while keeping the other constant, forms an H-plane sectoral horn.
EEE 3117 Antennas and Radiowave Propagation Dr. Kibet Langat 31 – 07 – 2012
EEE 3117 Antennas and Radiowave Propagation Dr. Kibet Langat 31 – 07 – 2012
• The analysis procedure for this horn is similar to that for the E-plane horn andthe electric field in the principal E- and H-planes reduces to
EEE 3117 Antennas and Radiowave Propagation Dr. Kibet Langat 31 – 07 – 2012
The directivity of the H-plane sectoral horn (DH) is given by
=
EEE 3117 Antennas and Radiowave Propagation Dr. Kibet Langat 31 – 07 – 2012
Pyramidal Horn• The most widely used horn is the one which is flared in both directions. It is
widely referred to as a pyramidal horn, and its radiation characteristics areessentially a combination of the E- and H-plane sectoral horns.
EEE 3117 Antennas and Radiowave Propagation Dr. Kibet Langat 31 – 07 – 2012
• Based on the pattern characteristics of the E-plane and H-plane sectoral horns,the pyramidal horn should focus the beam patterns in both the E-plane and theH-plane.
• In fact, the E-plane and H-plane patterns of the pyramidal horn are identical tothe E-plane pattern of the E-plane sectoral horn and the H-plane pattern of theH-plane sectoral horn, respectively.
• The directivity of the pyramidal horn (DP) can be written in terms of thedirectivities of the E-plane and H-plane sectoral horns:
• The overall aperture efficiency at optimum is roughly 50%. Hence the optimalgain is
since for long horns• To physically construct a pyramidal horn, the dimension pe given by
should be equal tothe dimension ph
given by
If these values are not equal, then the horn is not physically realizable.
References:
i. Constantine A. Balanis, Antenna Theory: Analysis and Design, 3rd ed.: WileyInterscience, 2005.
ii. Warren L. Stutzman, Antenna Theory and Design, 2nd ed.: Wiley, 1997.
iii. John Volakis, Antenna Engineering Handbook, 4th ed.: McGraw-Hill Professional, 2007.
iv. Joseph Carr, Practical Antenna Handbook, 4th ed.: McGraw-Hill/TAB Electronics:ISBN-13: 978-0071374354, 2001.
v. Simon R. Saunders, Alejandro Arago´ N-zavala, Antennas and Propagation for WirelessCommunication Systems, 2nd ed. JohnWiley & Sons, 2007
vi. IEEE Standard Test Procedures for Antennas, IEEE Std 149-1979, Published by IEEE,Inc., 1979, Distributed by Wiley-Interscience.
EEE 3117 Antennas and Radiowave Propagation Dr. Kibet Langat 31 – 07 – 2012
