Design Guidelines of Horn Antennas That Combine Horizontal and Vertical Corrugations for Satellite Communications

Today, telecommunication satellite horn antennas are required to be wideband mainly because of the additional bandwidth necessary to accommodate more transponders to increase the capacity of the new satellite services. In this aspect, horn antennas play a key role in the development of wider bandwidth services on board satellites because now-a-days, with recent advances in orthomode junctions and transducers, they are usually the bandwidth limiting component of a satellite antenna as often low crosspolar level is the toughest specification parameter. In this paper, the design guidelines for horn antennas that combine horizontal and vertical corrugations are explained, the method to prepare a preliminary profile for optimization is shown, and an example of a satellite feedhorn with severe requirements is presented.