A NEW EXTENDED BANDWIDTH ESCAN L-BAND & S-BAND TRACKING ANTENNA

Abstract

The design and performance of a 1435 MHZ to 2600 MHZ ESCAN1 feed will be discussed. The radiation characteristics of a very small (<10 wavelengths) reflector antenna will be presented. The ESCAN tracking concept offers a significant improvement in the effective gain, sidelobes and tracking performance for broadband telemetry trackers over previous, low-cost approaches. The tradeoffs associated with the optimization of the ESCAN antenna’s radiation performance will be presented along with a comparison of conical scan and single channel monopulse performance. The tradeoffs will include an analysis of the limitations in performance due to central blockage, aperture illumination, spillover, and coma effects of an “effective” off-axis feed for a small, paraboloidal reflector antenna.