Design of a Dual-Beam Dual-Polarized Offset Parabolic Reflector Antenna

In this paper, an offset reflector antenna with dual-beam and dual-polarization characteristics is developed to provide the angular diversity function for troposcatter communication system. The antenna system consists of a parabolic reflector and a dual-beam feed. For the dual-beam feed, two identical Ku-band feed elements are arranged side by side to generate two beams toward the reflector. The two beams are substantially nonoverlapping. The feed element is composed of a dielectric rod, a square waveguide, and an ortho-mode transducer. The dielectric rod is effective in reducing the beamwidth of the feed and providing more tapered illumination on the reflector in order to increase the antenna gain. Moreover, the developed antenna is able to produce two independent beams with the vertical and horizontal polarizations. The antenna was fabricated and tested with good agreement between the simulation and measurement results. The measured voltage standing wave ratios of the four feed ports are less than 1.5:1, and the beam separation angle is not more than 0.7° or about one time half-power beamwidth, and the antenna gain is higher than 45 dBi over the operating band from 14.5 to 15.35 GHz.