A Compact Gap-Waveguide Dual-Polarized Ka-Band Feed for 50dBi Reflector Antennas With Tracking Function

• Published in: IEEE access 2022, Vol.10, p.91622-91630
• Main Authors: Wang, Enlin, Zhang, Tianling, Zaman, Ashraf Uz, Emanuelsson, Thomas, Thorsen, Per-Arne, Agneessens, Sam, Yang, Jian
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Antenna feeds; Antenna measurements; Antenna radiation patterns; Data transfer (computers); Dual polarization (waves); Dual-polarized feed; Extremely high frequencies; Far fields; feed with tracking functions; Gain measurement; gapwave planar magic-T; Geometry; High gain; Millimeter wave communication; Reflector antennas; Simulation; Tracking; UHF antennas; ultra-high-gain antenna; Vertical polarization; Waveguides
• ISSN: 2169-3536; 2169-3536
• DOI: 10.1109/ACCESS.2022.3202314

A dual-polarized Ka-band feed based on gap waveguide (GW) technology for an ultra-high-gain reflector antenna is presented. The feed provides SUM-beams for data transfer and DIFF-beams for tracking. The whole reflector antenna is composed of the feed and a dual-reflector Cassegraine antenna. The feed has been prototyped, and the measured reflection coefficients for the horizontally and the vertically polarized SUM-beam ports are below −10 dB and −8 dB over 30.8-38 GHz, respectively. The measured feed radiation patterns agree well with the simulated ones. The dual-reflector Cassegraine antenna has been designed and simulated by using GRASP with the simulated far-field function of the proposed feed, showing that the reflector antenna achieves SUM-beam gains above 50 dBi and the null depth of the DIFF-beams are more than 30 dB below the maximum of SUM-beams.