Highly reliable & wideband digital multi beamforming horn array antenna with gain adjustment capabilities for space applications

This paper discusses design & measurement techniques for highly reliable & wideband Digital Multi beamforming Horn Array Antenna with gain adjustment capabilities for Space Applications. Complexity of feeding network has been reduced by many folds with the use of 24 dual coaxial fed circularly polarized conical horn antennas providing an excellent axial ratio of <;2 dB for entire array highly recommended for satellite communication. Horn array antenna shows excellent wideband characteristics having bandwidth greater than 1GHz with an excellent VSWR<;1.3. Horn array antenna holds the capability of transmission using both circular polarization as well as linear polarization. Horn array antenna exhibits high gain of 23.7 dB with multi beam operation. Independent element digital control enables the options for multiple beam forming, gain adjustment, & combinations of multiple adaptive beam generation discussed in detail. The chains from transmitter to antenna for beam forming network have also been discussed. Reliability analysis through antenna measurements show gain degradation due to failure of elements is less as compared to other antennas. Horn array antenna has been simulated & optimized on Ansoft HFSS v11.