Numerical analysis of dielectric lens antennas using a ray-tracing method and HFSS software

In this paper, we use for the first time the ray-tracing method combined with the HFSS software to analyze lens antennas. HFSS is a very popular commercial tool that can provide very accurate results for the simulation of antennas. However, because of limitations on computational resources, it is hard to apply to solving large electromagnetic problems. In this paper, HFSS is used to simulate the fields of the feed part of a lens antenna. The ray tracing method is adopted for the lens part. This treatment makes the combined method feasible for solving large lens antennas. In using the ray-tracing method, cubicspline interpolation is exploited to fit the face of the lens and to solve for the derivatives at each point on the curved surface. Newton´s method is applied to find the intercept between the ray and the curved surface. The numerical method proposed in this paper is very suitable for the analysis of dielectric lens antennas with arbitrary feeds and lens shapes. The validity of the idea is demonstrated by comparing the simulation results of this new method with those from using CST (Computer Simulation Technology) software. Very good agreement is achieved.