Millimetre antennas

Laura Bates
Friday 2 December 2016
finished-horns
An array of 16 finished horns for airport security imaging radar

Dr Graham Smith & Dr Duncan Robertson | Millimeter Wave & EPR GroupSchool of Physics & Astronomy

Horn antennas at microwave, mm-wave and terahertz frequencies are commonly used in high performance radars, radiometers and in advanced instrumentation and communication systems. Increasingly, these applications require highly directional, strongly polarised beams to be produced by very compact, low weight antennas, especially for spaceborne use.

In this project, we are developing a generic design tool which provides a simple and flexible methodology to design compact horns with very high levels of performance (e.g. low sidelobe level, low cross-polar level over wide bandwidths) at low cost. We have developed and tested a number of high performance designs, we are exploring novel low cost manufacturing methods, and we are working with manufacturers and microwave component suppliers targeting a number of application areas, including upcoming space missions.

co-polarised-scans

cross-polarised-scans

Measured near field scans of the beam from the submillimeter wave split block feedhorns, co-polarised (left).

smith Dr Graham M. Smith

 

 

 

 

robertson

 

 

Dr Duncan A. Robertson

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