A European Contoured Beam Reflector Antenna Development

This communication provides the present results of an ongoing development, sponsored by the European Space Agency, of design software and of a feasibility model for a contoured beam reflector antenna (COBRA), to cover Europe from a geostationary satellite. The design software, feed array elements and feed network components are described. Present computed and experimental results are given. New results include the use of original power synthesis algorithms, the combination of GTD and of Whittaker's pattern reconstruction technique for fast analysis of contoured beam reflector antenna performances, data on circularly polarised hexagonal array feed elements and design techniques for high phase and amplitude accuracy feed distribution networks.