This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been

fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/LAWP.2017.2689800, IEEE
Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters

Shaped Prime Focus Reflector Antenna for

Satellite Communication
Ramesh Chandra Gupta, Sravan K. Sagi, Kishor P. Raja, Nitin K. Sharma and Rajeev Jyoti

 shaping techniques. Center-fed reflector is known to suffer

Abstract—This paper is concerned with the design and analysis
of a dual-polarized center-fed shaped reflector antenna presently
implemented for satellite communication. Design challenges for
such an antenna have been outlined herein. A novel hybrid surface
shaping technique is devised that employs both global and local
surface profile variables using a blend of Zernike polynomials (for
globalized shaping) and Spline functions (for localized shaping).
TICRA POS software, a Physical Optics (PO)-based optimizer is
employed for the surface synthesis. This hybrid approach to
shaping provides additional degree of freedom for surface
optimization. Subsequently, scatterers such as spars, feed system,
feed-struts interface etc are modeled first time by importing
respective quadrilinear (quad) meshes and analyzed using a
combination of Physical Optics/Physical theory of diffraction
(PO/PTD) and method of moments (MoM) methods in TICRA
GRASP software. Inclusion of scatterers in the analysis results in
measured parameters to agree well with predicted response with
little deviations. Minimum radius of curvature (RoC) is controlled
during surface shaping to optimize XPD as well as to meet
fabrication constraints. The key requirement for the antenna to
handle 17% bandwidth having dual-orthogonal, linearly-
polarized function with edge of coverage (EOC) gain (>26 dBi) and
cross-polarization discrimination (XPD > 27 dB) over a wide
landmass coverage coupled with low volumetric space is
adequately met.
Index Terms— Shaped reflector, center-fed shaped reflector,
radius of curvature, satellite antenna, contoured beam antenna.
I. INTRODUCTION
N OWADAYS, almost every communication spacecraft
utilizes lateral-/top-mounted shaped reflector antenna
since these provide relatively uniform gain throughout a desired
contoured service area and isolation to non-service territory for
interference-free communication. The shaping of the reflector
is variously applied to top-mounted center-fed reflector
antenna, lateral-mounted offset-fed reflector antenna, lateral-
mounted dual-gridded offset reflector antenna, top-/lateral-
mounted Gregorian offset reflector antenna and other
configuration depending upon different RF requirements like
cross-polarization discrimination (XPD), edge of coverage
(EoC) gain, side-lobe suppression etc. as well as mechanical
factors such as launch vehicle fairing envelope constraint,
availability of real-estate on spacecraft for its accommodation,
weight and volume. Several researchers [1]-[11] have reported
shaped reflectors in various configurations using different
from blockage and scattering effects. There are other center-fed
antenna configurations such as ADE which minimize the above
effects. ADE is not chosen for this application, since it need an
extra sub-reflector mold which increases fabrication and
alignment related complexity leads to enhanced cost. The most
challenging task in a shaped reflector design is to obtain better
XPD along with EoC Gain. In the the case of a prime-focus
reflector antenna, to achieve good XPD is even more
challenging since scatterers in the path of primary or secondary
ray-bundles such as struts, feed system, feed supporting
interface etc. can significantly deteriorate XPD.
In literature, electrically small sized (Φ~27.7λ) shaped prime
focus reflector antenna is not described in detail. In this paper,
some design challenges of shaped center-fed reflector antenna
have been outlined to get excellent RF performance along-with
good surface characteristics.
As a sample case, an antenna required for a C-band space-
borne transponder catering 17% bandwidth dual-orthogonal
linear-polarized receive channels is considered. The major
performance requirements are: edge of coverage (EOC) gain
(>26 dBi) and cross-polarization discrimination (XPD > 27 dB)
over wide landmass coverage polygon including Indian
Mainland, Andaman-Nicobar & Lakshadweep Islands and also
Sri Lanka. The accommodation real-estate for the antenna is
constrained by volume 1500mm×1500mm×750mm on Earth-
facing panel of a geostationary satellite. To fulfill the afore-
cited requirement, a center-fed shaped reflector antenna (with
diameter = 1400mm and focal length = 700mm) is employed.
Novelty in present work is a method for shaping reflector with
spline and Zernike polynomial to get addition flexibility in
shaping. It is also concluded that reducing near field in vicinity
of feed system XPD can be improved in expense of EoC gain.
Demonstration of electrically small sized shaped prime focus
reflector antenna for space-borne application is another novelty.
Challenges are to get higher EoC gain along with good XPD
using a constrained volume of antenna. Proposed method is
better in case of small-sized antenna to get better performance.
Limitation of present method is a number of iterations and time
consumption.

The manuscript was submitted on 28 July 2016. Authors are with Space
Applications Centre, Indian Space Research Organization, Jodhpur Tekra,
Ahmedabad -380 015, Gujarat, India. (e-mail: rameshchgupta@yahoo.com).

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This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/LAWP.2017.2689800, IEEE
Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters
II. DESIGN AND ANALYSIS OF SHAPED PRIME-FOCUS
REFLECTOR ANTENNA
The prime-focal shaped reflector antenna is designed for a
set of target specifications corresponding to a dual-polarized
uplink function at frequency bands 5.93-6.41 GHz and 6.735-
6.975 GHz comprising a total of 36 receive channels. The
reflector surface profile is optimized using PO-based minimax
optimizer (TICRA POS).
The choice of a prime-focal reflector is primarily on account
of its compact dimensions suitable for a space-based platform.
For a prime-focal reflector, major design challenges and
complexity is imposed on the feed system and feed supporting
elements. As is well known, a parabolic reflector converges
parallel rays impinging on its surface to its focal point where
the feed is situated. Initially, the diameter of the reflector
antenna is chosen to obtain the desired EoC gain. Focal length-
to-diameter (F/D) ratio is chosen equal to 0.5 for better XPD
performance. Four struts with orientation in the principal and
orthogonal planes are selected and their end-points located
beyond the reflector rim to get good XPD [12]-[13]. The
reflector antenna has a feed supporting ring interface for axial
distance correction, if required during alignment. The feed and
feed support elements including spars and a ring interface (to
hold feed) interacts these converged rays hitting on their
external surfaces which primarily degrades cross-polarization.
By reducing the aperture cross-section of primary feed and ring
interface, this degradation in secondary cross-polarization
pattern can be minimized. The C-Rx/Rx feed system comprises
of a dual choke-loaded horn, slot-coupled stepped ortho-mode
transducer (OMT), and a circular-to-rectangular transition. The
coupled arm of the OMT (behind the horn) also perturbs
secondary rays. Keeping these aspects in mind, a C-Rx/Rx feed
system has been designed with the smallest possible aperture
cross-section and reduced side arm length of OMT. The strut-
feed ring interface is configured in octagonal shape. The feed-
strut interface supports feed system at the reflector focal point
with quadrupod struts lying in the planes of polarization. The
ring interface is also placed well behind the horn aperture so
that primary pattern of feed is degraded least. Thus feed
scattering for secondary rays is also reduced.
From an analysis point-of-view, the higher order interactions
between feed-reflector, feed-struts and struts-reflector are
explicitly accounted since these phenomena may degrade both
EoC gain and XPD of the reflector antenna. To reduce ripples
in gain over the service area (Gibbs phenomena) and spillover
loss, a highly-tapered feed system (-15 dB Edge taper at
reflector edge or at semi-subtended angle of ±61.5°) is used
instead of a customary -8 to -12 dB Edge taper typically used in
an unshaped reflector antenna for maximum aperture
efficiency. For achieving aforesaid challenging requirements;
the reflector surface is shaped by employing a novel hybrid
surface shaping technique that employs both global and local
shaping using a blend of Zernike polynomials (used for
Globalized surface shaping) and spline functions (used for
Localized surface shaping). This hybrid approach to shaping
provides extra degree of freedom for surface optimization.
Minimum radius of curvature (RoC)=150mm is controlled as
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per fabrication technology constraints during surface shaping.
A rigorous analysis procedure for shaped prime-focus reflector
has been developed based on PO/PTD and MoM method
accounting spar blockage (spherical and plane wave blockage),
feed-supporting ring-interface (with mesh import), feed-horn
(with mesh import) and end-fitting etc. The complete feed
system (consisting horn, OMT, transition) is included in
TICRA GRASP by importing its quad mesh.
To obtain the proposed hybrid surface shaping, during the
initial surface generation; first spline distortion (distortion#1) is
added to achieve the defined goal along with constraints. After
convergence, the optimized surface is defined as the initial
surface and Zernike distortion (distortion #2) is added and so
on (distortion #n) as described in Figure 1. Thus, any sequence
and number of complex set of Zernike and spline surface can
be used to obtain finer resolution of shaping (global and local
shaping) for getting good RF performance. In the present case,
a sequence of {spline, zernike, spline} surfaces are used. The
aforesaid manifestations are generic in nature and can be used
for other reflector configurations such as shared aperture
gridded reflector, dual reflectors, offset reflector etc. with equal
relevance. The final analysis is executed using PO/PTD and
MoM methods from TICRA GRASP accounting the induced
current on the exterior of the horn antenna, feed supporting ring
interface through its mesh import, four spars with spherical
wave blockage and plane wave blockage, end fittings etc. The
reflector surface is optimized on two frequency bands 5.93-6.41
GHz and 6.735-6.975 GHz instead of single band 5.93-6.975
GHz. This provides better optimization and convergence. The
co-ordinate of feed system is optimized during the synthesis
phase in TICRA POS which leads feed co-ordinate to be shifted
4.5mm inside the horn for optimum RF performance.
Fig. 1 C-Rx/Rx 1.4m reflector antenna: shaping
procedure using multiple distortions.
III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Fig. 2(a) show the schematic model of the designed antenna
and Fig. 1(c) the photograph of the realized 1.4m C-band dual-
polarized receive shaped prime focus reflector antenna. Quad
mesh model of feed system, interface ring and end fitting are
shown in Fig. 2 (b). The detailing of the various metallic
projections indicates the potential accuracy of the analysis
approach. The CAD model of feed and interfaces are meshed
and imported in TICRA GRASP prior to analysis. Figs. 2 (d)
and depict the shaped surface contour.
The measured gain of feed system with OMT is 12.2 to 13.1
This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/LAWP.2017.2689800, IEEE
Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters
dBi, cross–polar level is better than -33 dB and return loss is
better than 20 dB for each ports for all frequencies. Phase center
of the horn for -12 dB is -8.5 mm, that is 8.5mm inside the
aperture with respect to the horn aperture plane.
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
Fig. 2 1.4m C-Rx/Rx reflector antenna (a) schematic model,
(b) quad mesh of feed and interface ring, (c) photograph, (d)
shaped surface contour and
The satellite / antenna pointing error is ±0.15° in pitch,
±0.15° in roll and ±0.15° in yaw axis. It accounted by enlarging
polygon with specified pointing error and generating extra
stations for gain and XPD goal, in the design?
Coverage The loss budget of feed system is given in Table 1.
The gain contour plotted after subtracting total loss for each
polarization.
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Table 1 Loss budget of feed system
Component Loss (dB) for Loss (dB) for
direct port coupled port
Horn 0.04 0.04
Transition 0.02 0.02
OMT 0.07 0.07
Plumbline 0.28 0.21
Total Loss 0.41 0.34
Fig. 3 shows predicted and measured gain and XPD contours
for the 1.4m Prime-focus shaped reflector antenna at the two
edge-frequencies of 5.930 GHz and 6.975 GHz for Linear
Vertical polarization. Deviations are seen compared to
simulations, especially for the cross-polar patterns. These
deviations may be on account of several reasons such as
modeling simplification, analysis imperfection, fabrication
surface error, fabrication imperfection of feed system,
alignment imperfection, measurement uncertainty, etc. Small
reflectors (dia=27.7λ at lowest frequency) are prone to
diffraction at reflector edges which cause degradation in XPD.
Also multiple reflections between feed and reflector, reflector
and struts, struts and feed cause gain fluctuations. XPD can be
improved by two methods, viz, minimization of echo area of
different scatterer and minimization of field in the vicinity of
tightly interacting scatterers. The former leads to XPD
improvement without degradation of gain while the latter is
found to cause XPD improvement at the expense of gain
deterioration. In other words, better XPD could be achieved by
minimizing near field in the vicinity of feed system using
procedure similar to that described in [14]-[16]. Yet, the extent
of field minimization will proportionally cause overall gain
degradation. As a further measure, by employing RF
transparent Kevlar struts and making feed system smaller
scattering can be reduced and XPD can be improved with a
lower gain penalty.
Fig. 4 shows predicted and measured XPD contours of the
realized 1.4m Prime-focus shaped reflector antenna similarly
for linear horizontal polarization for satellite orbital slot 55º E.
Shaped reflector antenna can work with other nearby satellite
orbital slots with degradation in EoC gain and XPI. The
minimum gain within coverage (pink polygon in Figs. 2 & 3) is
seen to be slightly lower in the case of the Lin-H polarization
vs. Lin-V. The effective size of the blockage due to scatterers
may be larger than its projected area depending upon the
material and polarization. For a conducting support, the
effective size equals the actual dimensions in Lin-V whereas
the effective width becomes larger in Lin-H. Therefore the gain
for Lin-H -polarization is less than that for Lin-V polarization.
This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/LAWP.2017.2689800, IEEE
Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters

(a) XPD at 5.930 GHz

(a) Gain at 5.930 GHz

(b) XPD at 6.975 GHz

Fig. 4 XPD contour of 1.4m Prime-focus shaped reflector
(b) XPD at 5.930 GHz
antenna for horizontal polarization at coupled port (solid line :
predicted and dotted line : measured).

EoC gain for Lin-H is same as those for Lin-V and not given
here for sake of brevity. The gain contour does not exactly
conform with polygon (that is gain is outside polygon), since
electrical length of reflector is relatively small. However, by
using larger sized reflector we can get better shaped beam.

IV. CONCLUSION
A novel prime-focal shaped reflector has been proposed for
a contoured beam generation with good r.f. performance (EOC
gain, XPD etc.) The reflector is analyzed in the presence of feed
(c) Gain at 6.975 GHz system and supporting structure as well as spars using a
combination of PO/PTD and MoM methods. Hybrid surface
shaping is described based on a mix of spline and Zernike
polynomials. The concept has been applied for the design of a
dual-polarized C-Band antenna whose analysis is validated
through the realization of a hardware prototype in the form of a
flight model (FM) antenna. Measured results of the antenna
show good match to the simulated performance; hence
validating our proposal. This could be overcome in future
designs by minimizing the near field in the vicinity of the feed
system, employing RF transparent Kevlar struts, making feed
system smaller further etc.

(d) XPD at 6.975 GHz
Fig. 3 EoC Gain and XPD contour of 1.4m Prime-focus
shaped reflector antenna for Vertical polarization at direct port
(solid line : predicted and dotted line : measured)
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Authors thanks Mr Tapan Misra, Director, SAC for his
support and guidance. The authors also wish to thank to the
Engineers and personnel of AMID, AMDD, and AMF of SAC,
Ahmedabad and CSSD of VSSC, Thiruvananthapuram for their
support during mechanical design, measurement and
fabrication.

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This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/LAWP.2017.2689800, IEEE
Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters

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