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Algorithms for Rapid Characterization and Optimization of Aperture and Reflector Antennas

Abstract

Aperture and reflector antennas play a key role in the communication industry, and methods of enhancing the speed of their analysis and measurement can benefit industry as well as promote better understanding of software modeling through faster visualization. This dissertation addresses such methods. Use of the three-parameter aperture distribution, unified for both sum and difference patterns, provides fast calculation of the aperture radiation characteristics through the use of closed form equations. All reflector antenna systems require a feed to illuminate the reflector, and the feed aperture field integration and spherical wave expansion methods serve as means to trade accuracy for compute speed. The mode matching method of cylindrical corrugated feedhorn analysis is shown to be accelerated by nearly two orders of magnitude with the use of optimized computer math libraries. The Gaussian beam method is shown to improve computational speed by up to two orders of magnitude compared to brute force physical optics integration, and the Levin method up to three orders of magnitude acceleration. The use of graphics processors accelerates the physical optics compute speed by two orders of magnitude or more. The use of the sun as a source of radio flux provides a quick means of measuring receive G/T, for which the results of a Ka-band solar flux study are reported.

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