Horn antenna element

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-12519243-B2
Application number	US-202318133200-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Apr 11, 2023
Priority date	Oct 27, 2020
Publication date	Jan 6, 2026
Grant date	Jan 6, 2026

Abstract

A horn antenna element includes a septum polarizer configured to transform a linear polarized input signal into a circular polarized output signal at a common port, and a horn radiator. The horn radiator includes an input geometry formed as a quad-ridge waveguide to receive the circular polarized output signal at the common port and an aperture grid to radiate a grid-based circular polarized output signal. The septum polarizer is embedded in the quad-ridge waveguide at the common port.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1 . A horn antenna element comprising:
a septum polarizer configured to transform a linear polarized input signal into a circular polarized output signal at a common port; and
a horn radiator comprising:
an input geometry formed as a quad-ridge waveguide to receive the circular polarized output signal at the common port, the quad-ridge waveguide of the input geometry comprises four symmetrically formed ridges of equal size; and
an aperture grid to radiate a grid-based circular polarized output signal,

wherein the septum polarizer is embedded in the quad-ridge waveguide at the common port, the aperture grid is formed as an array of quad-ridge waveguides, and the array of quad-ridge waveguides is a 2×2 array of quad-ridge waveguides.

2 . The horn antenna element of claim 1 , wherein the quad-ridge waveguides of the aperture grid are symmetrically formed, each of the quad-ridge waveguides having a same cross section.

3 . The horn antenna element of claim 1 , wherein each of the quad-ridge waveguides of the aperture grid comprises four ridges.

4 . The horn antenna element of claim 3 , wherein the four symmetrically formed ridges of the quad-ridge waveguide of the input geometry and the four ridges of the array of quad-ridge waveguides of the aperture grid are formed in a non-overlapping manner.

5 . The horn antenna element of claim 1 , wherein the septum polarizer is configured to split an input TE1,0 mode of the linear polarized input signal into a mode combination of TE1,0 and TE0,1 with +/−90 degree phase difference in between, thereby creating an either left-handed circular polarization, LHCP, signal or right-handed circular polarization, RHCP, signal to be radiated by the horn radiator.

6 . The horn antenna element of claim 3 , further comprising two single linear polarized ports configured to receive, transmit or a combination thereof a respective linear polarized component of the linear polarized input signal.

7 . The horn antenna element of claim 6 , wherein the two single linear polarized ports are configured to simultaneously receive and transmit in a K-band frequency range and a Ka-band frequency range.

8 . The horn antenna element of claim 7 , wherein:
a reflection coefficient of the two single linear polarized ports is below a predetermined threshold and is free of resonances in both the K-band frequency range and the Ka-band frequency range; and the predetermined threshold is below −15 dB.

9 . The horn antenna element of claim 7 , wherein an axial ratio of the grid-based circular polarized output signal is below 1 dB in both the K-band frequency range and the Ka-band frequency range.

10 . The horn antenna element of claim 6 , wherein:
the septum polarizer comprises continuous ridged waveguide geometries from the two single linear polarized ports to the quad-ridge waveguide of the horn radiator; and the septum polarizer is staircase-shaped to transform the linear polarized input signal into the circular polarized output signal.

11 . The horn antenna element of claim 1 , wherein a cross section of the quad-ridge waveguide of the horn radiator corresponds to a cross section of the aperture grid of the horn radiator.

12 . The horn antenna element of claim 1 , wherein a geometry of the horn radiator is oversized with respect to a wavelength at a specified maximum operation frequency and is larger than one or multiple wavelengths at the specified maximum operation frequency.

13 . An airborne satellite communication system, the airborne satellite communication system comprising:
the horn antenna element of claim 1 ; and a multi-axis positioner configured to permanently align the horn antenna element to a given target satellite.

Assignees

• Draexlmaier Lisa Gmbh

Inventors

• Merk Thomas
• Bilogurov Ievgen

Classifications

• H01Q15/242

  Polarisation converters · CPC title

• H01Q1/28

  Adaptation for use in or on aircraft, missiles, satellites, or balloons · CPC title

• H01Q13/0275 Primary

  Ridged horns (slot-line radiating ends H01Q13/085) · CPC title

• H01P1/171

  using a corrugated or ridged waveguide section · CPC title

• H01Q13/0241 Primary

  radiating a circularly polarised wave (H01Q13/0258 takes precedence; polarisation converters H01Q15/244, in a waveguide H01P1/17) · CPC title