Double Ridged Horn Antenna Designs for Wideband Applications

M. Ghorbani*, A. Khaleghi** *K. N. Toosi University of Technology, Tehran, Iran , ghorbanirad@ee.kntu.ac.ir ** K. N. Toosi University of Technology, Tehran, Iran, khaleghi@eetd.kntu.ac.ir

Abstract: In this paper, different double ridged horn antenna (DRHA) designs are investigated for wideband applications. A classic design of 1-18 GHz DRHA with exponential ridges is modelled and the antenna pattern deficiencies are detected at frequencies above 12 GHz. The antenna pattern is optimized by modification of the antenna structure. However, the impedance matching is affected and the VSWR is increased at the frequencies below 2 GHz. The matching problem can be resolved by adding lossy materials to the back cavity of antenna. We have shown reduction of the antenna efficiency by 15% over the whole frequency range, except at the lower frequencies.

Keywords: Antenna, EMC tests, Double ridged horn, Wideband. 1. Introduction

The necessity of wideband and high gain antennas in different parts of communication industry is growing every day. In recent years there has been an increasing interest toward application of wideband double ridged horn antennas in EMC test procedures because of their high gain, well-shaped beam and easy manufacturing. The idea of using ridges in horn antennas to increase the bandwidth goes back to 50s. Probably the first important research on the subject was performed by Kerr in 1973 [1], in which he offered the design of a 1-12 GHz DRHA. In the following years DRH antennas became commercially available and some standards like MILSTD-461E determined 1-18 GHz DRHA as the standard antenna for the EMC test procedures [2]. A more recent development which has affected the direction of researches on this subject was a paper by Bruns et.al. [3], in which authors claimed serious pattern deteriorations of a DRHA at higher frequencies. The main reason is excitation of higher order modes in the waveguide section of the DRHA. Valuable efforts have been made to solve the problem, by adding a circular profile to the end of the ridges [4], carving an arc shape from the end of upper and lower flares [5], adding a triangular profile to the end of the ridges [6], modifying the shape of the back cavity [7] or using mode suppressors in the waveguide section of DRHA [8]. In the past years some commercial versions of the pattern improved DRHA have been introduced [9,10].

However, it seems that these products have some flaws, for example the gain of the mentioned antenna in [9] at the low frequencies is extremely small (below 0 dBi) and VSWR at the frequencies below 1.5 GHz is greater than 3, which seems insufficient for the EMC test applications. In a recent patent [11], the authors claimed a new DRHA design with well-shaped beam and smooth gain variation over 0.8-18 GHz frequency range by using a novel set of ridges and flares and introducing absorbers. The VSWR is improved at the lower frequencies but detailed pattern demonstration in the entire operating band is not provided and the effect of introducing absorbers on the efficiency of the antenna has not been investigated. In this paper, a full investigation is performed on different DRHA designs. The effects of the ridges profile on the VSWR and the patterns are shown. The antenna study is continued by adding absorber materials to the DRHA structure. The antenna performance is presented in terms of VSWR, radiation pattern and radiation efficiency. The paper is organized as follows. In section 2, the design of a classic DRHA with an exponential ridged is presented. In section 3, the design is optimized by modification of the antenna structure to achieve best pattern performance. In section 4, the operating bandwidth of the antenna is extended to 0.7-18 GHz by inserting absorber material in the back cavity. Section 5 concludes this paper. 2. Design and Simulation of a classic DRHA

A DRHA contains four main sub-sections: feeding section, waveguide and back cavity section, ridges, and the pyramidal part. Fig.1 shows the perspective view and the cut-away view of the understudy DRHA. For the external dimensions of the aperture and back cavity, some general design guidelines are available at MIL-STD 641E, or can be achieved from the commercial products [12]. Different types of ridge profiles, such as exponential, sinusoidal, binomial, etc, have been employed so far, but it has been mentioned in the literature that the exponential

profile offers a better match between impedance of the waveguide section and the free-space. Furthermore, in some papers it is indicated that adding a linear part superimposed to the previously mentioned exponential part, will decrease VSWR at low frequencies and will not affect the other parts of the frequency band [1,13]. The slope of the linear part is suggested as 0.02, which our later simulations showed to be precise. Thus the selected profile for the ridge section is offered in equation (1).

z ( y ) 0.02z z (0) e ky (0 y L )

(1)

where z is distance from symmetry axis, y is the distance from the waveguide aperture, L is the axial length of the antenna and k is a constant calculated as follows:

1 z (L ) ln( ) L z (0)

(2)

The antenna feeding is a SMA coaxial connector. The feed guides the energy through the upper ridge into the gap between the ridges, in a way that the outer conductor is connected to the upper ridge and the inner conductor connects to the lower one. The back cavity of the antenna is a rectangular shaped cavity which has been carved into the end shorting plane. The transition of this cavity to the intermediate waveguide box is done by four triangular shaped flaps. Fig. 2 shows the waveguide and back cavity structure. The dimensions of the back cavity are very important in return loss and pattern behavior of the antenna [4-6,14]. However, there are no analytical methods available to design this section and an optimization process can be conducted by numerical algorithms. L

To make a transition from the waveguide section to the free-space, four flared walls is required. However, due to high concentration of the electrical energy between the ridges, especially at the higher frequencies, the side walls have a negligible effect on the performance of the antenna, except at very low frequencies [15]. For this reason, the side flares are often replaced by metallic rods which perform the role of a wall at frequencies below 4 GHz [3]. Time domain full wave electromagnetic simulations were conducted for the antenna modeling and optimization. For this purpose, we use finite integration technique. The optimization of the back cavity profile is conducted in a way to achieve a structure with VSWR below 2 in the frequency range of 1-18 GHz. Simulations showed that the antenna radiation pattern at frequencies above 12 GHz is seriously deteriorated. Fig. 3 shows the antenna patterns at 12 and 14 GHz for both E and H planes. We can see a pattern null in the main beam direction at 12 GHz and the side-lobes of the antenna are significantly high at 14 GHz. 3. Modified DRHA design for pattern improvement According to [3], in order to have acceptable pattern we should set small values to some structural parameters like depth of the back cavity and feed spacing from cavity, but this will result in higher VSWR at the beginning of the frequency band. To solve VSWR problem we can add a circular profile to the end of the ridges, in a way that it would be tangential to the previous exponential profile. The radius of the added circular profile should be at least /4 at the lowest frequency. This change would require the upper and lower flares to open in a wider angle which will make the pattern wider in Eplane and would decrease the antenna gain slightly. Our simulations showed that the rods have negative effect on the pattern, so these rods are eliminated in our revision. The corners of the flares are also rounded to avoid diffraction problems. Fig. 4 shows the perspective view and the cut-away view of the improved design. The simulation of the revised antenna shows no pattern problems in whole operating frequency band. Fig. 5 shows the radiation patterns for 12 and 14 GHz.
10 0

(a)

(b)

Fig. 1 Model of Classic DRHA: (a) Outside view (b) Cut-away view

E-Plane H-Plane

10 0

E-Plane H-Plane

G ain(dB )

G ain(dB )
-120 -60 0 60 120 180

-10 -20 -30 -40 -120 -60 0 60 120 180

-10 -20 -30

Theta

Theta

Fig. 2 wave guide and back cavity structure of the antenna (Note: other parts are hidden for clarity)

(a)

(b)

Fig. 3 Pattern of the Classic DRHA in (a) 12 GHz, (b) 14 GHz

(a)

(b)

pattern of the antenna does not change. Fig. 7 illustrates the gain of the antenna with and without the absorber effect. As shown the overall gain is reduced with absorber. Fig. 8 provides a comparison of the total efficiency of the antenna versus frequency. The efficiency degradation between 5 to 20 percent can be seen for the antenna with absorber. Despite the better matching, at the lower band the antenna gain and the total efficiency are reduced. However, at 1 GHz a slight improvement in total efficiency is observed.
5 4.5 4 3.5
VSWR

Fig. 4 Model of improved design DRHA: (a) Perspective view (b) side view

without absorber with absorber

As shown, the pattern null at 12 GHz is removed and the side-lobes in 14 GHz are reduced. The VSWR below 2 for frequencies above 2 GHz is achieved (Fig.6 solid line). The gain of the antenna is about 4 dBi at very low frequencies which makes the antenna more suitable than the commercial antenna presented in [9] (see Fig.7 solid line). 4. DRHA with absorber filled cavity

3 2.5 2 1.5 1 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18

The design of a DRHA antenna with an appropriate matching for the frequencies below 2 GHz and a correct radiation pattern is a valuable work. In [11] a method by loading the antenna cavity with a lossy material is proposed. We insert lossy materials inside the back cavity of the modified ridged DRHA. The only disadvantage of this method is the introduced loss in the antenna which will adversely affect radiation efficiency and was not mentioned in [11]. The antenna consists of a new back cavity box of 2 cm depth which is filled with absorbing material. The set is replaced by the metallic shorting plane of the previous design. The other parameters of the antenna remain the same. ECCOSORB FDS is selected as the absorbing material which can operate at 0.8-18 GHz. The electric and magnetic loss tangents of the selected material are 0.15 and 0.4 respectively. The simulations shows that the VSWR of the antenna improves considerably at the lower frequencies and remains below 2.5 for the frequencies above 700 MHz (see Fig. 6 dashed line). Additionally, the radiation
10 0

Freq. (GHz)

Fig. 6 Comparison of VSWR before and after adding absorber

18 16 14 12
Gain (dB)

10 8 6 4 2 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 without absorber with absorber 14 16 18

Freq. (GHz)

Fig. 7 Comparison of Gain before and after adding absorber

1 0.9

E-Plane H-Plane

10 0

E-Plane H-Plane

G ain(dB )

-10 -20 -30 -120 -60 0 60 120 180

-10 -20 -30 -120 -60 0 60 120 180

Efficiency

0.8

G ain(dB )

0.7 0.6

Theta

Theta

(a)

(b)

Fig. 5 Pattern of optimized antenna in (a) 12 GHz , (b) 14 GHz

0.5 0

Tot. Eff. without absorber Tot. Eff. with absorber 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18

Freq. (GHz)

Fig. 8 Comparison of total efficiency before and after adding absorber.

5.

Conclusion

[5] A. R. Mallahzadeh and F. Karshenas, Modified TEM Horn Antenna For Broadband Applications, Progress In Electromagnetics Research, PIER 90, pp. 105-119, 2009. [6] A. R. Mallahzadeh and A. Imani, Modified Double-Ridged Antenna for 2-18 GHz, ACES Journal, Vol. 25, No. 2, 2010. [7] V. Rodriguez, Recent improvements to dual ridge waveguide horn antennas: The 200MHz to 2000MHz and 18GHz to 40GHz models, International Symposium on Electromagnetic Compatibility EMC 2009, pp. 24-27, 2009. [8] J. I. Moon, S. S. Oh, J. M. Kim, S. I. Jeon, C. J. Kim, Double Ridged Horn Antenna Having Higher-Order Mode Suppressor, U.S. Patent 2010/0238086 Al, Sep. 23, 2010. [9] ETS-3117 datasheet, ETS-Lindgren Corporation, Cedar Park, USA. [10] R&SHF907 datasheet, Rohde & Schwarz, Munich, Germany. [11] H. Steghafner, D. Leugner, B. Klos, Horn Antenna U.S. Patent 2009/0079649 A1, Mar. 26, 2009. [12] SAS-571 datasheet, A.H. Systems, Chatsworth CA, USA. [13] Shen Z., Feng C., A New Dual-Polarized Broadband Horn Antenna, IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, VOL. 4, 2005. [14] Botello-Perez, M.; Jardon-Aguilar, H.; Ruiz, I.G.; Design and simulation of a 1 to 14 GHz broadband electromagnetic compatibility DRGH antenna, 2nd International Conference on Electrical and Electronics Engineering (ICEEE) and XI Conference on Electrical Engineering (CIE 2005), pp. 118 121, 2005. [15]V. Rodriguez, New broadband EMC double-ridge guide horn antenna, RF Design Mag., May, 2004.

Different double ridged horn antenna designs were analyzed in terms of radiation pattern and the impedance bandwidth. A classical DRHA with exponential ridges has a wide-bandwidth (0.8-18 GHZ) but the radiation patterns have nulls at the main beam at frequencies above 12 GHz. The pattern problem is resolved by modifying the structure. However the antenna bandwidth is reduced to (2-18 GHz). The design of a lossy material loaded cavity was proposed for VSWR optimization. We have shown, despite the achieved wide bandwidth of 0.7-18 GHz, the antenna efficiency is reduced by 5- 20 percent. Acknowledgements This work was partly funded by the research grant of Iran Telecommunication Research Center (ITRC). References
[1] Kerr, J.L, Short axial length broad-band horns, IEEE Trans. Antenna Propagat., AP-21, pp. 710714, 1973. [2] Requirements for the Control of Electromagnetic Interference Characteristics of Subsystems and Equipment, MIL-STD-461-E, Department of Defense, August 1999. [3] Bruns, C., Leuchtmann, P. and Vahldieck, R., Analysis and simulation of a 118-GHz broadband double-ridged horn antenna, IEEE Trans. Electromagn. Compat., 45, pp. 5560, 2003. [4] Azimi, M. A., F. Arazm and R. F. Dana, Design and optimisation of a high frequency EMC wideband horn antenna, IET Microw. Antennas Propag., Vol. 1, No. 3, 580585, June 2007.