Design and construction of a highly efficient low cost wideband corrugated conical horn

This paper deals with the design and construction of an inexpensive, compact wideband conical corrugated horn using aluminium plates that produce symmetric radiation patterns, good impedance match and low cross-polarisation. One of the objectives of this paper is to produce a low cost, small and compact antenna without compromising the copolar patterns. With these objectives in mind, a unique design methodology was used. The conical corrugated horn was manufactured with aluminium plates. These plates have varying diameters in the centre and when bolted together, slots and ridges also known as the corrugations were formed. These plates have equal widths and changes to the radiation characteristics and bandwidth can be easily made to the design by either removing or adding plates to it. The final design has shown successful results with symmetrical E and H plane radiation patterns, good impedance match with a VSWR<2 over a bandwidth of 6 GHz, low crosspolar levels, compactness and inexpensiveness. This corrugated horn can be used for many applications like feed horn for reflector dishes, spacecraft antennas or radar. And most importantly, the horn has design and application flexibility by changing the dimensions of the aluminium slots to alter its characteristics.