Pulse radiation antenna fed with a face-to-face TEM horn

Greater interest in utilizing antenna systems for electromagnetic compatibility and target identification applications has been focused on the antenna's short pulse or ultrawideband (UWB) operation capabilities. One typical configuration for realizing a UWB antenna is to use a biconical TEM launcher as the feed to illuminate a parabolic reflector. However, the biconical TEM launcher has a greater aperture blockage. We introduce a novel antenna configuration with a modified face-to-face TEM horn feed. Generally, the face-to-face TEM horn will result in serious aperture blockage. To reduce the aperture blockage, quite a large part of the face-to-face horn is replaced by a metal wire frame. In practice, the modified feed consists of a mode convertor, a small TEM horn cascaded with a metal wire frame. The antenna is proven to be effective for high power subnanosecond pulse radiation.