Low-sidelobe reflector synthesis and design using resistive surfaces

A procedure is presented for determining the resistivity of a paraboloid´s reflecting surface to obtain a desired sidelobe level. The only requirement is that the normalized aperture distribution due to the feed be greater than the corresponding normalized low sidelobe distribution at every point on the reflector (i.e. the reflection coefficient of the surface ⩽1). In the synthesis procedure, blockage is ignored and an ideal feed is assumed. In spite of this, computation of the secondary radiation patterns of a resistively corrected antenna including the feed using the method of moments shows that a -40-dB sidelobe level is achievable. In principal, there is no limit to the sidelobe reduction for the field scattered from the reflector. In practice, blockage, feed illumination errors, errors in the surface resistivity, and the feed backlobe will limit the sidelobe level