A NEW VARIABLE BEAMWIDTH ANTENNA FOR TELEMETRY TRACKING SYSTEMS

Abstract

This paper presents a new variable beamwidth antenna designed for use in telemetry tracking systems when a high gain/low gain antenna configuration is required. This antenna can be commanded to continuously vary its beamwidth between a high gain/narrow beamwidth mode of operation and a low gain/ wide beamwidth mode of operation. A design goal of a 4:1 increase in beamwidth has been set and a 3.0:1 increase has been achieved without causing any significant degradation in the shape of the antenna patterns and without generating exceedingly high sidelobes in the low gain setting. The beamwidth variation occurs continuously without any loss of data, boresight shift or jitter such as experienced with the operation of conventional implementations of the high gain/low gain antenna technique.