Optimal discrete-amplitude excitations for arrays feeding a parabolic antenna receiving from off-axis satellites

One relatively inexpensive setup for domestic reception of signals from two or more satellites is to use a conventional offset parabolic reflector fed by suitably placed off-axis arrays. In this paper, we show that the peak gain attainable using arrays with element-excitation amplitudes restricted to two or three values provided by a cascade of 3 dB power dividers can be as little as a few tenths of a decibel lower than that of arrays with unrestricted excitations. the optimum excitations are synthesized by a simulated annealing and downhill simplex optimization method.