The synthesis of satellite antennas with flat topped footprint patterns using rectangular and circular arrays

The problem of the design of planar antenna arrays with desired footprint patterns is considered in this paper. A simple antenna pattern synthesis technique that permits the design of planar antenna arrays with rectangular or circular geometries is presented. The adopted approach basically depends on the idea that the field pattern of an aperture antenna can be estimated from the double Fourier transform or the Fourier-Bessel transform of the aperture distribution for rectangular and circular aperture respectively. Aperture sampling techniques are used to transform the continuous aperture problem to the discrete planar array problem. Computer simulation show that the presented simple approach results in footprint patterns with desired properties.