Light weight dual polarized horn antenna for polarimetry C-band synthetic aperture radar sensor onboard UAV

Abstract

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) can collect earth surface information with synthetic aperture radar (SAR) sensors during night, day, and bad weather. However, UAVs have only limited volume and weight for the SAR payload. A very light dual circularly polarized pyramid horn antenna was developed in order to improve sense capability in UAV dual polarimetry SAR images. The pyramid horn was designed and simulated in computer simulation technology (CST) 2022. The horn was capable of producing two circular polarizations right-hand circular polarization (RHCP) and left-hand circular polarization (LHCP) alternately using a three stepped septum polarizer and coaxial probe feed on two sides of the waveguide. The results show that the horn antenna was capable of having a wide S11 and S22 bandwidth from 4 GHz to 6.7 GHz. The horn was capable of producing two circular polarizations with an axial ratio below 3 dB from 4.4 GHz to 6.4 GHz. This gain horn antenna was relatively stable in the range of 15 dBiC with a reasonably narrow 3 dB beamwidth of 28° both RHCP and LHCP polarisation in E and H fields respectively.