Robust interval-based analysis of pattern distortions in reflector antennas

A new analytic approach for the analysis of the power pattern distortions generated by reflector antennas with errors on the reflector surface is introduced. The deviations from the ideal surface, supposed unknown, are modeled as intervals and then the rules of the interval arithmetic and Interval Analysis (IA) are used to efficiently compute the upper and lower bounds of the power pattern. The properties of IA guarantee that the obtained pattern bounds contain all possible power patterns generated by a reflector antenna whose defects are within the supposed error intervals. Analysis with distributed surface errors as well as localized defects (e.g., bump-like deformations) can be addressed. A representative result is here reported to show the behavior of the approach.