Radiation pattern of a satellite antenna located in a clutter environment

A new method to predict the radiation pattern of a satellite ground station antenna in the presence of near field obstacles has been successfully developed. The method is based on the use of the ray tracing approach combined with PCT. This new method can guarantee highly accurate results, which are confirmed by the comparison with the PO approach. The problem of the impossibly long computation time of the PO solution for high clutter environments is overcome by a more efficient approach that can take advantage of the fast computation provided by ray methods. This solution is also more flexible and can be practically applied by ground station operators to predict high unexpected sidelobes, localize possible areas of intense electromagnetic field and consequently be able to chose the most suitable place to install the antenna on a given site.