Shaped reflector antenna configurations for generating a rotatable elliptical spot beam

Reconfigurable antennas will be an active field of antenna technology in the coming years. A simple beam shape which can be used to illuminate many different regions on the Earth is an arbitrary ellipse, which is the best fit ellipse to a given shape. The parameters which define an arbitrary ellipse are the major and minor axes, the orientation and the location of the ellipse with reference to the coverage area (pointing). Limited reconfigurability can be obtained by fixing the axes of the ellipse, allowing arbitrary orientation and pointing. A steerable elliptic spot beam antenna is previously discussed. This paper describes three different shaped reflector antenna configurations for generating a rotatable elliptical spot beam.