Simulation of a cylindrical reflector by conducting circular cylinders

A cylindrical reflector is simulated by
N
parallel circular conducting cylinders of arbitrary radius and distribution along the trajectory of the continuous reflector surface. The resulting radiation pattern of the transmitting reflector antenna is computed as the backscattering pattern of the circular cylinders due to a line source excitation. The results for large
N
are compared with published data for a cylindrical parabolic reflector by Kinzel and for a corner reflector by Tsai. It is shown that the beamwidth and first sidelobe level can be improved by using cylinders of unequal radii and spacing but that, contrary to expectation, further improvement by increasing the number of cylinders is not necessarily possible.