5.

CONCLUSION
This Letter established a set of general properties that characterize
the transmission matrices of 2n-port reciprocal networks—see
Table 1. Knowledge of these properties is important for various
reasons. On the one hand, they can be used to speed up compu-
tation algorithms (which is especially important for complex high-
order networks, n Ⰷ 1); on the other hand, by checking if those
properties are obeyed, one may control the accuracy of network
numerical computations.

REFERENCES
1. L. Huelsman, Circuits, matrices, and linear vector spaces, McGraw-Hill,
New York, 1963.
2. V. Belevitch, Classical network theory, Holden-Day, San Francisco,
1968.
3. N. Balabanian and T. Bickart, Electrical network theory, Wiley, New
York, 1969.
4. J. Brandão Faria, Multiconductor transmission-line structures, Wiley,
New York, 1993.
5. C. Paul, Analysis of multiconductor transmission lines, Wiley, New
York, 1994.
Figure 1 Geometry of a single-feed TM21-mode circularly polarized
© 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. circular patch antenna

not use a 3-dB hybrid, have been investigated by some researchers

A SINGLE-FEED TM21-MODE CIRCULAR [2– 4]. This Letter presents a single-feed TM21-mode circular patch
PATCH ANTENNA WITH CIRCULAR antenna with a perturbation segment for CP. The formula for the
POLARIZATION operating condition for CP is derived and verified by the experi-
ment. A practical circular patch antenna model is presented and
Biao Du,1,2 Edward Kai-Ning Yung1 achieves an impedance bandwidth of 10%, an axial ratio band-
1
Department of Electronic Engineering width of ⬎2%, a gain of ⬎8 dBi, and a good pattern characteristic.
City University of Hong Kong
83 Tat Chee Avenue This antenna can be used for both mobile communications and
Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR GPS applications.
People’s Republic of China
2
Communication Telemetry and Telecontrol Research Institute 2. ANTENNA DESIGN
Shijiazhuang 050081
Hebei, People’s Republic of China As shown in Figure 1, the antenna has a circular patch with a
perturbation segment ⌬S. The substrate is a foam layer of dielec-
tric constant close to unity. The antenna is fed by a 50-⍀ coaxial
Received 2 November 2001
probe that is connected to the patch and operates in the TM21
mode. The geometric dimensions are as follows: D p ⫽ 64 mm,
ABSTRACT: A single-feed TM21-mode circular patch antenna with
circular polarization (CP) is proposed and investigated. The operating H ⫽ 4 mm, a ⫽ 10 mm, b ⫽ 4.2 mm, r ⫽ 24 mm, ␾ ⫽ 22.5°.
condition for CP in the antenna is theoretically determined and experi- Single-feed patch antennas can realize CP by adjusting the
mentally validated. An impedance bandwidth of 10% (SWR ⱕ 2) and an perturbation segment ⌬S to produce two degenerate orthogonal
axial ratio bandwidth of ⬎2% (ⱕ3 dB) have been obtained. The radia- modes. The operating condition for CP in a circular patch antenna
tion patterns are stable over the operating band. © 2002 Wiley Periodi-
cals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 33: 154 –156, 2002; Published
online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com).
DOI 10.1002/mop.10262

Key words: single feed; circular polarization; circular patch antenna

1. INTRODUCTION
With the development of mobile satellite (MSAT) communica-
tions, a simple and low-cost mobile terminal antenna is required.
Microstrip antennas are widely used in MSAT communications
owing to their low cost, light weight, and low profile. When an
antenna mounted on top of a mobile vehicle or a moving system or
in a portable briefcase system communicates with a geostationary
orbit (GEO) or low-Earth-orbit (LEO) satellite, a conical radiation
pattern is needed to achieve optimum coverage. A four-feed TM21-
mode circular patch antenna can produce this conical pattern for
CP [1]. However, because of the four-point feed, the antenna has
a complicated feed network. A simple method to realize CP
operation, single-feed TM11-mode circular patch antennas that do Figure 2 Measured SWR versus frequency

154 MICROWAVE AND OPTICAL TECHNOLOGY LETTERS / Vol. 33, No. 3, May 5 2002
excited by the TM21-mode can be determined by circuit theory as
follows:

冏 冏
⌬S
S
⫽
1
2.5014Q
,

where ⌬S is the area of the perturbation segment, S is the area of

the patch, and Q is the patch quality factor.

3. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
The SWR and radiation patterns of the antenna are measured by
using an HP8510C network analyzer and a HP 85310C antenna

Figure 4 Measured axial ratio versus frequency

measurement system in a compact-range anechoic chamber. Figure

2 shows the measured SWR. The SWR is ⱕ2 in a frequency range
3.9 – 4.34 GHz, corresponding to an impedance bandwidth of 10%.
The radiation patterns at the center frequency of 3.94 GHz are
shown in Figures 3(a) and 3(b) and they are stable across the
operation band (3.90 –3.98 GHz). The results indicate that the
antenna is left-hand circularly polarized when the feed point is
placed as shown in Figure 1. When the perturbation segment
rotates 45° in the clockwise direction, right-hand CP can be
generated. The conical pattern is obtained with the maximum
cross-polarization level below ⫺17 dB and a gain over 8 dBi.
Figure 4 displays the measured axial ratio in the maximum radi-
ation direction of the CP antenna; the 3-dB axial-ratio bandwidth
is about 3.5%. However, the 3-dB axial-ratio bandwidth in the 30°
conical angle range near the maximum radiation direction (the
practical operation bandwidth) is only ⬎2%. The patterns are
slightly asymmetrical, which is attributed to the asymmetrical
structure (single feed). If the symmetrical patterns and lower
cross-polarization levels are required, one additional feed probe
located symmetrically can be employed. Moreover, a wider band-
width can be attained with the use of an L-shaped probe feed [5].
Based on the operating condition for CP above given, the area
of perturbation segment is calculated to be 兩⌬S/S兩 ⫽ 2.462%. By
experiment, also finds its optimum value: 兩⌬S/S兩 ⫽ 2.53%. It can
be observed that the theoretical value 兩⌬S/S兩 is in good agreement
with the experimental one for the CP operating condition. There-
fore, the formula for the CP operating condition of the TM21-mode
is useful for the design of the antenna (determining the area of the
perturbation segment).

4. CONCLUSIONS
A simple and cheap TM21-mode circular patch antenna with CP is
presented. The TM21-mode operating condition for CP is given
and can be used for the design of this type of CP antenna. Good
impedance matching and radiation characteristics are achieved in a
single-feed TM21-mode circular patch antenna with CP. This an-
tenna can be used not only in MSAT communications but also in
GPS applications.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Figure 3 Measured radiation patterns at 3.94 GHz (a) ␸ ⫽ 0° plane; (b)
␸ ⫽ 90° plane; solid lines, LHCP (co-polar); dashed lines, RHCP (cross- The authors would like to thank Professor K. M. Luk for his help
polar) in our research work.

MICROWAVE AND OPTICAL TECHNOLOGY LETTERS / Vol. 33, No. 3, May 5 2002 155
REFERENCES
1. John Huang, Circularly polarized conical patterns from circular micro-
strip antennas, IEEE Trans Antennas Propagat AP-32 (1984), 991–994.
2. M. Haneishi, T. Nambara, and S. Yoshida, Study on elliptical properties
of single-feed-type circularly polarized microstrip antennas, Electron
Lett 18 (1982), 191–193.
3. M. Haneishi and S. Yoshida, A design method of polarized microstrip
antenna by one-point feed, Trans IECE Jpn J64-B (1981), 225–231.
4. M. Haneishi, A design of back-feed type circularly polarized microstrip
disk antennas having perturbation element, Trans IECE Jpn J64-B
(1981), 612– 618.
5. W.K. Lo, J.L. Hu, C.H. Chan, and K.M. Luk, Circularly polarized patch
antenna with an L-shaped probe fed by a microstrip line, Microwave
Opt Technol Lett 24 (2000), 412– 414.
© 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
DOUBLY CURVED APERTURE
ANTENNA SHAPE PREDICTION WITH
THE USE OF NETWORK-BASED
PREDICTORS
Amitesh Punhani and Gregory Washington
Ohio State University
206 West 18th Avenue
Columbus, Ohio 43210
Wilhelmus H. Theunissen
OSU ElectroScience Laboratory
1320 Kinnear Road
Columbus, Ohio 43210
Received 29 October 2001
ABSTRACT: The main objective of this work is to predict the shape of
an antenna subreflector that produces a desired radiation far-field pat-
tern by utilizing artificial intelligence and other methodologies. In this
study the size of the radiation beam is kept constant while it is steered
throughout the domain. Three different methodologies or constructs are
used to develop this model: Neural networks, batch least squares, and
recursive least squares. The accuracy of a method is measured by the
sum-squared error of the training examples. During training the vari-
ables inside of the constructs are varied, so that the predicted aperture
shape matches the actual shape. The networks predicted the antenna
reflector shape at an average accuracy of over 97%, the maximum be-
ing 99.78%. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol
Lett 33: 156 –163, 2002; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.
interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/mop.10263
Key words: reconfigurable antennas; active subreflectors; neural net-
works; recursive least squares
1. INTRODUCTION
Contour beam reflector antennas (CBRA) represent one of the
most efficient and popular types of contemporary antennas. These
can be of any shape, such as cylindrical, spherical, or parabolic.
They can transmit the signals to and from the earth and can be
oriented in any direction for a particular shape of radiation pattern.
It should be noted that every beam pattern is related to at least one
antenna shape. Hence, an antenna of a specific contour will deliver
a “user defined” radiation pattern.
The advent of reconfigurable contour beam reflector antennas
(RCBRA) has made a great step toward the usefulness of the
satellite antennas in many different areas (defense, commercial,
research, etc.). The main advantage of these types are that they can
156 MICROWAVE AND OPTICAL TECHNOLOGY LETTERS / Vol. 33, No. 3, May 5 2002
change the orientation of the beam and also the shape of the
pattern, by optimizing or changing the shape of the reflector. When
a particular radiation pattern is needed a RCBRA or its software
must synthesize or render the shape needed to produce that par-
ticular pattern. This process is computationally inefficient and can
take hours to days to calculate. In this work a real-time method-
ology is developed with the use of neural networks and other
nonlinear predictive mechanisms. This work utilizes three different
predictive models:
1. Backpropagation with adaptive learning
2. Batch least-squares method
3. Recursive least-squares method
All of these models work by utilizing the technique of training.
This removes much of the computational issues off line, thereby
allowing a smooth or orbit transition from one shape to another.
This means that one can immediately transfer the antenna from one
shape to another without the use of lookup tables, which have
limited interpolation ability for nonlinear systems. The networks
are trained with a certain number of training data sets; that is, the
output for each of the inputs is known beforehand. The weights
associated with the network are either adjusted toward the decreas-
ing error (in neural networks) after each epoch, or are calculated
for the minimum possible error (in the least-squares method).
The network can be trained in two ways:
1. Batch training: In this a set of examples is passed through
the network and then the error is calculated and the weights
are adjusted.
2. Recursive training: Here, the error is calculated after each
example is passed through the network, so the weights are
adjusted after every example.
In the present work both types of training methods are used and the
results are evaluated. The present work uses a Reconfigurable
Offset Cassegrain Reflector Antenna (Figure 1) in the modeling.
The main components of this antenna include a feed horn, which
sends the signal to the subreflector; a flexible sub reflector, which
reflects the signal to the main reflector; and a rigid main reflector,
which sends the signal to the desired location. The subreflector is
hyperboloidal in shape with one of the foci at the phase center of
the feed horn and the other at the focus of the main reflector
(parabola in shape). The size of the antenna subreflector is kept
constant, but because of its flexibility, its shape can be changed to
get the desired radiation pattern.
2. NEURAL NETWORKS
The neural networks (NN) used in this study consists of a three-
layer structure. The first layer is known as the input layer, the
second or intermediate layer is called the hidden layer, and the
third layer is known as the output layer. All these layers have
weights attached to them (Figure 2). The network is presented an
example picked from a set of labeled training examples, consisting
of unique input signal and the corresponding desired output re-
sponse. The weights (initial values are chosen randomly) of the
network are modified so as to minimize the difference between the
desired response and the actual response of the network produced
by the network. The training of the network is repeated for many
examples, until the network reaches a steady state where there are
no significant changes found in the weights. Thus the network
learns from the examples. Figure 2 shows a network with three
layers and their corresponding nodes.