Electrical Performance Compensation of Reflector Antenna Based on Sub-Reflector Array

Abstract

Large high-frequency reflector antennas typically operate outdoors and are impacted by environmental factors such as wind, rain, snow, solar radiation, etc. These conditions cause the antenna structures to distort, which, in turn, affects electrical performance. The observation performance of the antenna is seriously affected. To solve this problem, based on the active control of sub-reflector arrays, an optimization method for sub-reflector arrays and an active compensation method for electrical performance are proposed. Through real-time regulation of the phase plane of the distorted aperture field, the electrical performance of the antenna can be compensated for. The research object, a 65 m Cassegrain dual-reflector antenna, is designed in this work using a sub-reflector with an aperture of 6.1 m. The form and posture of the sub-reflector are comprehensively changed by adjusting the position of the sub-reflector panel and the overall movement of the sub-reflector, and the phase inaccuracy of the aperture field brought by the deformation of the main reflector is compensated for. The simulation results demonstrate that the maximum gain loss can be reduced from 0.44315 dB to 0.0803 dB and the maximum point error can be reduced from 0.00143° to 0.00047° under wind load with an average wind speed of 12 m/s using the active sub-reflector array adjustment strategy proposed.