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Analysis and Simulation of a 118-GHz Broadband Double-Ridged Horn Antenna

Christian Bruns, Student Member, IEEE, Pascal Leuchtmann, Member, IEEE, and Ruediger Vahldieck, Fellow, IEEE
AbstractA 118-GHz broadband double-ridged horn antenna with coaxial input feed section is investigated. For the ridged horn antenna it is found that the radiation pattern, contrary to common belief, does not maintain a single main lobe in the direction of the horn axis over the full frequency range. Instead, at frequencies above 12 GHz, the main lobe in the radiation pattern starts to split into four large side lobes pointing in off-axis directions with a dip of up to 6 dB between them along the main axis. Although this type of horn is the preferred test antenna, which is in common use for over four decades, no explanation for this unwanted behavior was found in the open literature. To investigate this phenomenon in detail, a method of moments approach has been adopted to simulate the complete antenna system. The simulations are in good agreement with the measurements over the 118-GHz operational bandwidth and indicate that the use of this type of horn antenna in EMC applications remains questionable. Index TermsBroadband ridged horn antenna, method of moments, radiation pattern deterioration.

I. INTRODUCTION ORN antennas are widely used devices for transmission and reception of electromagnetic waves in areas such as standard measurement equipment, EMC testing, radar, and communication systems. Generally, they are simple to build, provide very good directional performance, and show excellent peak power handling capability. To extend the maximum usable to, e.g., 18:1, bandwidth of horns from typically ridges are introduced in the flared part of the antenna. This is commonly done in waveguides to lower the cutoff frequency of the fundamental mode and thus expand the single-mode range before higher order modes occur [1]. The same effect is exploited in ridged horn antennas [2][5]. The main motivation to mode) ensure single-mode operation (e.g., of the pseudoover the largest possible bandwidth compared to standard horns without ridges is twofold: First, since the design of this antenna type dates back to the late 1950s, numerical field solvers were unavailable at that time, and the workhorse to calculate and design these antennas was the RF network theory, which is based on single-mode propagation [6]; second, propagation of higher order modes, if not properly taken into account, will lead to undesired effects in the radiation characteristics of the antenna. This is typically the case at frequencies higher than GHz, for a 118-GHz horn, as shown in this paper. Also more advanced methods such as the Chu-formulation or
Manuscript received December 4, 2001; revised June 28, 2002. The authors are with the Laboratory for Electromagnetic Fields and Microwave Electronics (IFH), Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zurich 8092, Switzerland (e-mail: bruns@ifh.ee.ethz.ch). Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TEMC.2002.808022

the -field-model are not suitable for predicting accurately enough, e.g., the current densities within the ridge horn antenna or its radiation characteristics [7], [8]. These methods are to a large extent semi-analytical and require significant simplifications of the antenna geometry before they can be applied (e.g., they are not capable of including the coaxial feed network). Broadband ridged horns are standard components that can be bought off the shelf from different antenna manufacturers. However, regardless of the manufacturer, all 118-GHz ridged horn antennas investigated by the authors exhibited a similar deterioration of the radiation pattern over a large range of higher frequencies: While sweeping the frequency, sudden significant gain reductions on the center 0 axis as well as other strong pattern deformations were measured without any apparent reason. These problems are not mentioned in any manufacturers data sheet, instead the antennas are usually delivered with an approximate gain curve being the only specification. Deterioration of the radiation pattern is of particular concern for those applications where one relies on a well-behaved pattern such as for EMC measurements, primary reflector feeds or calibration purposes. In the past, several electromagnetic simulations of ridged horn antennas were made, but not over such a broad operational frequency range and also not including the coaxial feed, e.g., [9][15]. Restrictions concerning the geometrical complexity were generally made due to limitations inherent in the applied numerical technique or for the sake of the available computational power. For the reasons outlined above, the decision was made to use a full-wave method of moments (MoM) approach to carry out a complete broadband simulation of the ridged-horn antenna including the coaxial feed [16]. II. HORN-ANTENNA MODEL The ridged horn consists of a coaxial type input connector, a cavity below the coaxial input section, two exponentially plane flares shaped ridges, two lower as well as upper and two wedges (Fig. 1). The boxed dimensions of the horn are 184 126 112 mm . The specially manufactured connector used for this antenna is a high precision type to prevent the excitation of higher order modes up to 20 GHz and to support a maximum power level of 5 kW. The plane side walls in our horn antenna were originally made out of solid aluminum tubes but were replaced by thin copper straps, which can be more easily removed for comparison purposes. They serve as a means to control the width of the radiation pattern at lower frequencies, but do not have any measurable effect at frequencies above 4 GHz.

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Fig. 1. Front view of the 118-GHz horn. Note the type N input connector, the E plane copper straps, the two exponentially shaped ridges, the lower and upper H plane flares, and the cavity.

Fig. 3. Coaxial input configuration in the model of the broadband ridged horn antenna (cut view). At the left end of the coaxial feed line, the source elements are situated radially between the inner and outer conductor.

Fig. 2. Simulation model of the broadband ridged horn antenna (9492 PEC metallic triangles). See Fig. 3 for a detailed view of the coaxial feed section.

A. Modeling of the Broadband Ridged Horn Antenna Modeling of the horn antenna was performed using the commercial electromagnetic simulation software FEKO and the built-in Delaunay triangulation for the parts having straight edges only [17]. The curved ridges of the antenna were modeled using the two dimensional triangulation freeware program Triangle, which allows a very efficient control of key parameters such as e.g., maximum triangle size and suppression of Steiner points on the outer contour [18]. The shape of the edge contour is defined with third order spline functions. Whenever possible, electrical, magnetic and geometrical symmetries were used throughout the modeling process to keep the computational effort (i.e., CPU-time and memory requirements: RAM size 2 GB) within acceptable limits. The resulting model of the

ridged horn antenna consists of 9492 perfectly electrically conducting (PEC) metallic triangles (Fig. 2). Triangulation and wire segmentation refinement were adjusted so that the numerical conditions (such as area and length discretization with respect to the frequency) imposed by the utilized MoM approach are fulfilled for the maximum operating frequency of 18 GHz and so that the problem can be solved within a reasonable time. The triangle area was forced to be as and the length of the line segments small as . To eliminate the generation of electromagnetic was set to artifacts resulting from different geometry discretizations, the values for the triangulation and segmentation were kept constant throughout the 118-GHz range. For this reason, the surface discretization in the coaxial feed section will appear to be rather coarse as compared to its actual size (Fig. 3). Eight different feeding networks were closely investigated with respect to their ability to excite a pure TEM wave on the coaxial feed line without the existence of common modes and current loops, which is generally a nontrivial problem for MoM codes [19]. The feeding method yielding by far the best and most reasonable results was the configuration consisting of hollow, eight-cornered inner and outer conductors powered by eight equally spaced cophasal voltage sources; they are situated at the left end of the coaxial input line and oriented in a radial direction (Fig. 3). B. Numerical Procedure The MoM technique is used to directly solve the electric-field integral equation (EFIE) on the discretized surface of the horn antenna. Point matching as well as the method of weighted residuals is then applied, which yields the final current density distribution on the metallic triangles and the wire segments of the feed horn, respectively [16], [19]. This full-wave approach requires approximately 1.6 GB of main memory for the matrix inversion that is needed in the process of the numerical evaluation for 9492 PEC metallic triangles. Problems and erroneous

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Fig. 4.

H plane radiation pattern of the horn antenna at 5 GHz.

Fig. 5. E plane radiation pattern of the horn antenna at 15 GHz (comparison between measurement, standard antenna model simulation, and a refined antenna model with gaps).

field results can arise from the exclusive usage of the EFIE if the discretized geometry is highly complex and the EFIE is used at its mathematical limitations. An example are current loops on very small parts of the structure, which do not make sense from an electromagnetic point of view but still can exist in the simulation model since they do not violate the conditions imposed by the EFIE [19]. Therefore, all results were carefully checked for erroneous current distributions. The solution to this problem would be to use both the EFIE and the magnetic field integral equation (MFIE). This, however, would lead to a significantly longer computation time and was therefore not implemented in the algorithm. III. SIMULATION AND MEASUREMENT Measurements of the feed horn radiation pattern and the absolute gain within the 118-GHz range were carried out in an plane. The raanechoic chamber both in the - and in the diation patterns were recorded with an angular resolution of 3 over a 180 spatial range and compared to the simulation results derived with the MoM approach. Due to the vast amount of data obtained from the measurements and simulations, only exemplary results exhibiting typical phenomena and problems are presented in the following subsections. A distinction is made between results for lower and higher frequencies as well as for the standard ( -/ plane) and a 45 slanted antenna measurement position. A. Results for Frequencies 12 GHz
Fig. 6. H plane radiation pattern of the horn at 13 GHz (comparison between measurement, standard-antenna model simulation, and a refined-antenna model with gaps).

in the lower side lobe region [20]. Further differences between the simulation and the measurement results particularly in the side lobe range are due to limited discretization possibilities in the feeding area resulting in local violations of the energy balance. After the evaluation of all simulated and measured radiation patterns it can be generally stated that the agreement is very good both in the - and plane for all frequencies lower or equal to approximately 12 GHz. B. Results for Frequencies 12 GHz

Fig. 4 shows the radiation pattern derived at 5 GHz in the plane of the broadband ridged feed horn antenna. With the exception of the deviations in the outermost angular range, the agreement between simulation and measurement is very good. The differences at the outer angles are a result of the inequality of the space surrounding the feed horn in the simulation scenario and the measurement setup (numerically infinitely extended space versus finite anechoic chamber volume with weak scatterers). Due to the maximum usable geometrical length inside the anechoic chamber, also the plane wave far field condition (1) wherein is the speed of light and the largest diagonal extension of the antenna under test, will be violated for frequencies GHz which results in incorrect measurements especially

For frequencies greater than 12 GHz however, the discrepancy between simulated and measured radiation patterns was initially considerable. The off-the-shelf ridged horn antenna was carefully examined to pinpoint possible features distinguishing the real prototype antenna from the numerical simulation model. Since the ridged horn cannot be made from one piece but is assembled from several subsections, it was quickly found that the mechanical accuracy of the subsections did not match standard Swiss mechanical precision. The bottom of the cavity and also the flaps were not connected mm to properly, exhibiting a gap on the order of the neighboring structures. These gaps have been included in the refined antenna model (labeled as Gap Simulation in the radiation patterns) and proved to have a significant influence on the simulation results. This is illustrated in Figs. 5 and 6 (Standard Simulation refers to the initial ideal horn antenna model without gaps). Now, the overall agreement between

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Fig. 7. Three-dimensional logarithmic radiation pattern of the broadband ridged horn at 10 GHz (qualitative representation of gain; maximum gain is in broadside 0 direction).

simulation and measurements is considerably better and the gap simulation also reproduces the deteriorated center axis pattern in the measured radiation pattern correctly. The best agreement between measurement and simulation of the radiation pattern considering the aforementioned gaps is achieved at around 15 GHz in the plane. It should be noted, however, that these improvements cannot be simply transferred to all other simulations. In some frequency ranges, the gaps have a less pronounced effect and their influence on the - and plane patterns can also be quite different. Furthermore, due to the much larger conduction currents in the cavity bottom, the gaps in the cavity edges do have a stronger effect on the radiation pattern in the simulation model than the ones between adjacent flare parts. The knowledge however that very small (as compared to the rest of the geometrical structure) gaps and geometrical imperfections do have a significant impact on the radiation pattern, allows an optimization of the broadband ridged horn both in the simulation and in the actual antenna. Still, some differences in the side-lobe region between the simulated and the measured radiation patterns are present for higher frequencies, while the agreement in the near vicinity of the center axis is good over the whole operational bandwidth. This is also true for the absolute maximum gain in the - and plane measurements as well as for the absolute broadside gain (the latter being defined as the gain in the 0 center axis direction). C. Off-Axis Side Lobes As was mentioned in the introduction, all of the commercially available 118-GHz ridged horn antennas investigated by the authors displayed a significant pattern deterioration at higher frequencies. This deterioration, which results in a sudden gain reduction in the -/ plane measurements, can be nicely visualized in a three-dimensional (3-D) simulated radiation pattern plot. For frequencies below 12 GHz, the radiation pattern still looks as expected from a typical horn antenna, i.e., it has one

Fig. 8. Three-dimensional logarithmic radiation pattern of the broadband ridged horn at 15 GHz (qualitative representation of gain; maximum gain is in direction of the four side lobes).

Fig. 9. 45 azimuthally slanted plane radiation pattern of the horn antenna at 15 GHz (comparison between measurement and simulation).

dominant main lobe (Fig. 7). At 15 GHz however, Fig. 8 shows a pattern with quite undesirable characteristics: The single main lobe is now split into four large side lobes that grow equally spaced around the 0 center axis while the main lobe appears to be strongly indented. Since the radiation pattern is measured in practice only in the -and plane, measurements will consequently just show a sudden gain drop in the graph for the broadside direction. The large side lobes however will not be detected in a standard -/ plane testing procedure and therefore do not appear on pattern measurement data sheets. In order to confirm the existence of these side lobes, the measurement setup was changed and the horn antenna brought into a 45 azimuthally slanted position. The experimental verification of the 3-D pattern depicted in Fig. 8 clearly shows the presence of the side lobes in the measurement (Fig. 9). The presence of these side lobes is particularly problematic for EMC applications such as testing in an anechoic chamber, which usually depend on a well-defined radiation pattern with only a single main lobe [21].

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above 12 GHz; this in turn is due to a general flaw in the layout of all similarly designed broadband ridged horn antennas. Depending on the application (e.g., high vs. low power) possible solutions to circumvent the undesirable performance degradation are a complete redesign of the feeding section, dielectric volume insets in the flared part of the antenna or a dielectric lens on the aperture. IV. CONCLUSION
Fig. 10. Magnitude of the time-averaged Poynting vector in the horn aperture at 10 GHz (qualitative representation; maximum power density is in the dark regions).

Fig. 11. Magnitude of the time-averaged Poynting vector in the horn aperture at 15 GHz (qualitative representation; maximum power density is in the dark regions). TABLE I COMPARISON OF 0 AXIS GAIN DETERIORATION BETWEEN DOUBLE-RIDGED HORNS OF DIFFERENT MANUFACTURERS

We presented the electromagnetic simulation of a 118-GHz broadband double-ridged horn antenna including a coaxial excitation. Our frequency-domain MoM simulations have been supported by measurements. This is the first time that such a complete antenna system was simulated in one step over the entire frequency range. It was found that for satisfactory antenna performance, small geometric tolerances of the ridged waveguide horn must be maintained and that the introduction of mechanical imperfections into the simulation model significantly enhances the agreement between simulations and measurements. Furthermore, our research indicates that all similarly designed broadband ridged horns exhibit the same performance degradation in the upper frequency range, as they fail to effectively suppress the propagation of higher order modes. Nevertheless, manufacturers of these antennas continue to advertise them as suited for application over the full 118-GHz range. ACKNOWLEDGMENT The authors would like to thank Dr. U. Jakobus of Electromagnetic Software and Systems (EMSS) Ltd., South Africa, for many helpful discussions and exchange of ideas for the implementation of the software package FEKO. Modeling of some parts of the antenna was accomplished with the mesh generator Triangle by Dr. J. Shewchuk of the University of California at Berkeley. Thanks also to S. Wheeler and C. Maccio from the mechanical workshop of IFH for fabricating the high precision prototype horn antenna. REFERENCES
[1] S. B. Cohn, Properties of ridged wave guide, Proc. IRE, vol. 35, pp. 783788, Aug. 1947. [2] A. Hizal and U. Kazak, A broadband coaxial ridged horn antenna, in Proc. 19th Eur. Microwave Conf., Turnbridge Wells, U.K., 1989, pp. 247252. [3] K. L. Walton and V. C. Sundberg, Broadband ridged horn design, Microwave J., pp. 96101, 1964. [4] C. W. Gillard and R. E. Franks, Frequency independent antennas Several new and undeveloped ideas, Microwave J., pp. 6772, 1961. [5] J. L. Kerr, Short axial length broad-band horns, IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. AP-21, pp. 710714, Sept. 1973. [6] S. Hopfer, The design of ridged waveguides, IRE Trans. Microwave Theory Tech., vol. MIT-3, pp. 2029, Oct. 1955. [7] W. L. Barrow and L. J. Chu, Theory of the electromagnetic horn, Proc. IRE, vol. 27, pp. 5164, 1939. [8] N. A. Adatia, A. W. Rudge, and C. Parini, Mathematical modeling of the radiation fields from primary feed antennas, in Proc. IEEE Symp. Electromagn. Compat., Sept. 1977, pp. 329333. [9] T. Wriedt, K.-H. Wolff, F. Arndt, and U. Tucholke, Rigorous hybrid field theoretic design of rectangular waveguide mode converters including the horn transitions into half-space, IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. 37, pp. 780789, June 1989. [10] C. Reig and E. Navarro, FDTD analysis of E -sectoral horn antennas for broadband applications, IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. 45, pp. 14841487, Oct. 1997.

To investigate this phenomenon in more detail, a closer look was taken into the electromagnetic field configuration within the flared section of the horn antenna. In the simulation, one can clearly see that for frequencies reaching the critical region around 12 GHz suddenly much more complicated field configurations start to develop as compared to the fields at lower frequencies. Also the power distribution over the horn aperture exhibits a similar behavior: A comparison of the contour plots of the time-averaged magnitude of the Poynting vector at 10 GHz (Fig. 10) and 15 GHz (Fig. 11) indicates that single-mode propagation is present for lower frequencies mode), whereas multi-mode propagation sets (pseudoin at approximately 12 GHz (the asymmetry in the plot is due to the unsymmetric coaxial feeding). Radiation pattern measurements of four double-ridged horns built by different manufacturers confirm this observation (Table I). All of them exhibit a comparable gain reduction in the 1315-GHz range and showed very similar -/ plane pattern deterioration. Our simulations indicate that this is clearly related to the failure to effectively suppress the propagation of higher order modes

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[11] F. Tristant et al., F.D.T.D. method applied to the generation and propagation of short pulses, in Ultra-Wideband, Short-Pulse Electromagnetics 3, C. Baum et al., Eds. New York: Plenum, 1997, pp. 279286. [12] F. Tristant, F. Torrs, P. Leveque, P. Jecko, C. Cruciani, and P. Nol, Transient study of radiated field of horn antennas, in Proc. 10th Int. Conf. Antennas and Propagation, Apr. 1997, pp. 13461349. [13] R. Bunger, R. Beyer, and F. Arndt, Rigorous combined mode-matching integral equations analysis of horn antennas with arbitrary cross section, IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. 47, pp. 16411648, Nov. 1999. [14] A. K. Bhattacharyya and G. Z. Rollins, Accurate radiation and impedance characteristics of horn antennasA moment-method model, IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. 44, pp. 523531, Apr. 1996. [15] R. Bunger, R. Beyer, and F. Arndt, MLFMM analysis of ridged waveguide horns, in Proc. ESA Millenium Conf. Antennas and Propagat., Davos, Switzerland, Apr. 2000. [16] R. F. Harrington, Field Computation by Moment Methods. Piscataway, NJ: IEEE Press, 1993. [17] U. Jakobus et al.. (2002) FEKOField computations involving objects of arbitrary shape, Stellenbosch, South Africa. [Online]. Available: www.feko-usa.com [18] J. R. Shewchuk. (2002) TriangleA two-dimensional quality mesh generator and delaunay triangulator. Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA. [Online]. Available: www.cs.cmu.edu/quake/triangle.html [19] E. K. Miller, Ed., Computational Electromagnetics: Frequency-Domain Method of Moments. Piscataway, NJ: IEEE Press, 1992. [20] IEEE Standard Test Procedures for Antennas, IEEE Standards Board, 1990. [21] M. Windler, Private communication, June 2001.

Pascal Leuchtmann (M98) received the diploma in electrical engineering, and the Ph.D. degree from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zurich, Switzerland, in 1980, and 1987, respectively. He was a Scientific Assistant in the electromagnetics group, working on theoretical electrical engineering, mainly general-purpose numerical calculation of electromagnetic fields. Currently, he is a Lecturer in electromagnetics and leads the research group in research on EMC and antennas at the Laboratory of Electromagnetic Fields and Microwave Electronics (IFH), ETH.

Christian Bruns (S00) received the Dipl. Ing. degree in electrical engineering from the University of Karlsruhe, Karlsruhe, Germany, in 2000. Currently he is working toward the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering at the Laboratory of Electromagnetic Fields and Microwave Electronics (IFH), Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich, Switzerland. From August 1996 to May 1997, he was a Visiting Student at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, through a scholarship grant. His research interests include the numerical analysis of general electromagnetic problems, antenna systems, reverberation chambers, EMC, and mobile communications. In addition, he is interested in economics, business, and administration.

Ruediger Vahldieck (M85SM86F99) received the Dipl. Ing. and the Dr. Ing. degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Bremen, Germany, in 1980 and 1983, respectively. From 1984 to 1986, he was a Research Associate at the University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, Canada. In 1986, he joined the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada, where he became a Full Professor in 1991. During Fall and Spring 1992/1993 he was a Visiting Scientist at the Ferdinand-Braun-Institut fr Hochfrequenztechnik, Berlin, Germany. Since 1997, he is a Professor of electromagnetic field theory at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich, Switzerland. His research interests include numerical methods to model electromagnetic fields in the general area of EMC and in particular, for computer-aided design of microwave, millimeter wave, and opto-electronic integrated circuits. Since 1981 he has more than 200 published technical papers in books, journals, and conferences, mainly in the field of microwave CAD. Prof. Vahldieck, together with three co-authors, received the outstanding publication award of the Institution of Electronic and Radio Engineers in 1983. In 1996, he received the J.K. Mitra Award of the IETE for the best research paper in 1995. He is the Past-President of the IEEE 2000 International Zurich Seminar on Broadband Communications (IZS2000) and President of the EMC Congress 2003 in Zurich. He is Associate Editor of the IEEE MICROWAVE AND WIRELESS COMPONENTS LETTERS and member of the Editorial Board of the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MICROWAVE THEORY AND TECHNIQUES. Since 1992, he has served on the Technical Program Committee of the IEEE International Microwave Symposium, the MTT-S Technical Committee on Microwave Field Theory, and in 1999, on the TPC of the European Microwave Conference. He is the Chapter Chairman of the IEEE Swiss Joint Chapter on MTT, AP, and EMC.