Canonical examples of reflector antennas for high-power microwave applications

The suitability of various radiating systems for generating a directive high-power microwave (HPM) beam is considered. It is concluded that offset reflector antenna systems are well suited for this purpose. An HPM reflector antenna may consist of one or two reflectors that are illuminated by single or array feeds. To accurately predict the performance of an HPM reflector antenna, a versatile analysis scheme is used to compute the fields of an array feed with general configurations, and the diffraction techniques of physical optics (PO) and physical theory of diffraction (PTD) are applied to analyze reflectors of conic or shaped surfaces. Design examples of offset dual-reflector antennas for HPM applications are presented. Analysis results are shown with emphasis on both the near-field and far-field radiation characteristics. Applications of optimization (mathematical programming) techniques to the diffraction synthesis of HPM reflector antenna systems are discussed, and examples are given to demonstrate their effectiveness.< >