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NASA NTRS1974

Aperture excited dielectric antennas

The results of a comprehensive experimental and theoretical study of the effect of placing dielectric objects over the aperture of waveguide antennas are presented. Experimental measurements of the radiation patterns, gain, impedance, near-field amplitude, and pattern and impedance coupling between pairs of antennas are given for various Plexiglas shapes, including the sphere and the cube, excited by rectangular, circular, and square waveguide feed apertures. The waveguide excitation of a dielectric sphere is modeled using the Huygens' source, and expressions for the resulting electric fields, directivity, and efficiency are derived. Calculations using this model show good overall agreement with experimental patterns and directivity measurements. The waveguide under an infinite dielectric slab is used as an impedance model. Calculations using this model agree qualitatively with the measured impedance data. It is concluded that dielectric loaded antennas such as the waveguide excited sphere, cube, or sphere-cylinder can produce directivities in excess of that obtained by a uniformly illuminated aperture of the same cross section, particularly for dielectric objects with dimensions of 2 wavelengths or less. It is also shown that for certain configurations coupling between two antennas of this type is less than that for the same antennas without dielectric loading.

Crosswell, W. F.↗

NASA NTRS1977

Multifrequency, broadband, dual-polarized antenna

Corrugated, conical horn, ring-loaded antenna can be fed through vertex of cone with wideband waveguides, such as double-ridged rectangular or quad-ridged circular, or simply ring-loaded, corrugated waveguides. Antenna is also fed through coupling apertures in side of cone at appropriate diameters.

Green, K. A.↗

NASA NTRS1987

Use of a 2.3-GHz traveling-wave maser on the Usuda 64-meter antenna

A 2.3 GHz traveling-wave maser/closed-cycle refrigeration system was installed on the 64 m antenna at Usuda, Japan. This was done to evaluate the beam-waveguide antenna noise performance, and to support the International Cometary Explorer's (ICE's) comet flyby mission. System noise temperature at 2270 MHz was measured to be 15 K, including the maser noise contribution of 2.5 K. Maser installation and noise performance are described. The Usuda 64 m antenna is of high quality with a system operating noise temperature better than the DSN 64 m antennas.

Neff, D.↗

NASA NTRS1986

Antennas for spacecraft synthetic aperture radars

Future SAR missions will require light weight, multifrequency, multipolarization spacecraft antennas. NASA has conducted an investigation of possible antenna technologies, and has identified two promising technologies: interleaved open-ended waveguide antennas constructed from metallized graphite epoxy and distributed microstrip antennas. The investigation and candidate technologies are described in this paper.

Davidson, S. E.↗

NASA NTRS2012

Design and Performance of a Wideband Radio Telescope

The Goldstone Apple Valley Radio Telescope (GAVRT) is an outreach project, a partnership involving NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), the Lewis Center for Educational Research (LCER), and the Apple Valley Unified School District near the NASA Goldstone deep space communication complex. This educational program currently uses a 34-meter antenna, DSS12, at Goldstone for classroom radio astronomy observations via the Internet. The current program utilizes DSS12 in two narrow frequency bands around S-band (2.3 GHz) and X-band (8.45 GHz), and is used by a training program involving a large number of secondary school teachers and their classrooms. To expand the program, a joint JPL/LCER project was started in mid-2006 to retrofit an additional existing 34-meter beam-waveguide antenna, DSS28, with wideband feeds and receivers to cover the 0.5-to- 14-GHz frequency bands. The DSS28 antenna has a 34-meter diameter main reflector, a 2.54-meter subreflector, and a set of beam waveguide mirrors surrounded by a 2.43-meter tube. The antenna was designed for high power and a narrow frequency band around 7.2 GHz. The performance at the low end of the frequency band desired for the educational program would be extremely poor if the beam waveguide system was used as part of the feed system. Consequently, the 34-meter antenna was retrofitted with a tertiary offset mirror placed at the vertex of the main reflector. The tertiary mirror can be rotated to use two wideband feeds that cover the 0.5-to-14-GHz band. The earlier designs for both GAVRT and the DSN only used narrow band feeds and consequently, only covered a small part of the S- and X-band frequencies. By using both a wideband feed and wideband amplifiers, the entire band from 0.5 to 14 GHz is covered, expanding significantly the science activities that can be studied using this system.

Weinreb, Sander↗

NASA NTRS1994

Radial microstrip slotline feed network for circular mobile communications array

In mobile and satellite communications there is a need for low cost and low profile antennas which have a toroidal pattern. Antennas that have been developed for mobile communications include a L-Band electronically steered stripline phased array, a Ka-Band mechanically steered elliptical reflector antenna and a Ka-Band printed dipole. In addition, a L-Band mechanically steered microstrip array, a L-Band microstrip phased array tracking antenna for mounting on a car roof and an X-Band radial line slotted waveguide antenna have been demonstrated. In the above electronically scanned printed arrays, the individual element radiates normally to the plane of the array and hence require a phase shifter to scan the beam towards the horizon. Scanning in the azimuth is by mechanical or electronic steering. An alternate approach is to mount microstrip patch radiators on the surface of a cone to achieve the required elevation angle. The array then scans in the azimuth by beam switching.

Simons, Rainee N.↗

NASA NTRS1995

DSS-24 microwave holography measurements

The JPL DSN Microwave Antenna Holography System (MAHST) was applied to the newly constructed DSS-24 34-m beam-waveguide antenna at Goldstone, California. The application of MAHST measurements and corrections at DSS 24 provided the critical RF performance necessary to not only meet the project requirements and goals, but to surpass them. A performance increase of 0.35 dB at X-band (8.45 GHz) and 4.9 dB at Ka-band (32 GHz) was provided by MAHST, resulting in peak efficiencies of 75.25 percent at X-band and 60.6 percent at Ka-band (measured from the Cassegrain focus at f1). The MAHST enabled setting the main reflector panels of DSS 24 to 0.25-mm rms, making DSS 24 the highest precision antenna in the NASA/JPL DSN. The precision of the DSS-24 antenna (diameter/rms) is 1.36 x 10(exp 5), and its gain limit is at 95 GHz.

Rochblatt, D. J.↗

NASA NTRS1996

Modeling and analysis of the DSS-14 antenna control system

An improvement of pointing precision of the DSS-14 antenna is planned for the near future. In order to analyze the improvement limits and to design new controllers, a precise model of the antenna and the servo is developed, including a finite element model of the antenna structure and detailed models of the hydraulic drives and electronic parts. The DSS-14 antenna control system has two modes of operation: computer mode and precision mode. The principal goal of this investigation is to develop the model of the computer mode and to evaluate its performance. The DSS-14 antenna computer model consists of the antenna structure and drives in azimuth and elevation. For this model, the position servo loop is derived, and simulations of the closed-loop antenna dynamics are presented. The model is significantly different from that for the 34-m beam-waveguide antennas.

Gawronski, W.↗

NASA NTRS1996

Modeling and Analysis of the DSS-14 Antenna Control System

Gawronski, W.↗

NASA NTRS2017

Twin Telescope Tests: Assessing Station Oriented Systematic Errors

Each of NASA’s three Deep Space Network sites has multiple large antennas capable of acquiring VLBI data. The long range plan is to have four 34-meter beam waveguide antennas at each site. At present Goldstone has three, Canberra has three, and Madrid has two with two more under construction. These antennas offer the opportunity to do connected element interferometry (CEI) over the few hundred meter baselines within each complex. Given that all antennas within a site are of nominally the same structural design, are run off the same clock, observe through almost the same atmosphere, and are subject to almost the same geophysics, doing CEI experiments is an excellent way to probe the limits of VLBI accuracy and expose station-specific systematic errors. This paper will report the results of just such tests which achieved about 0.2 mm baseline precision per pass. Some stations exhibit more than 1 mm systematics. Based on this data we will discuss the implications for whether the IAG’s goal of 1 mm station stability in VLBI geodesy is possible for large antennas.

Jacobs, Christopher↗

NASA NTRS1972

Dielectric loaded aperture antennas.

This paper describes a primarily experimental study of the effect of placing dielectric obstacles having various geometries directly upon the aperture of circular and rectangular waveguide antennas. It is found that plexiglas spheres, and in some cases plexiglas cubes, one to four wavelengths in dimension, produce directive patterns with low sidelobes. The measured gain in some cases is 6 dB greater than the gain of an optimum horn having an equal aperture size.

Croswell, W. F.↗

NASA NTRS2003

Development of a new 20kW CW transmitter for 34-meter antennas of NASA's Deep Space Network

A next generation of 20kW dual-band transmitters was developed for NASA's Deep Space Network 34m Beam Waveguide antennas.

DSN Transmitter↗

NASA NTRS1992

Real-time antenna fault diagnosis experiments at DSS 13

Experimental results obtained when a previously described fault diagnosis system was run online in real time at the 34-m beam waveguide antenna at Deep Space Station (DSS) 13 are described. Experimental conditions and the quality of results are described. A neural network model and a maximum-likelihood Gaussian classifier are compared with and without a Markov component to model temporal context. At the rate of a state update every 6.4 seconds, over a period of roughly 1 hour, the neural-Markov system had zero errors (incorrect state estimates) while monitoring both faulty and normal operations. The overall results indicate that the neural-Markov combination is the most accurate model and has significant practical potential.

Mellstrom, J.↗

NASA NTRS1990

A compact 2.5-Kelvin closed-cycle refrigerator

A helium refrigerator utilizing the Gifford-McMahon/Joule-Thomson cycle was designed and tested to demonstrate the feasibility of using small closed-cycle refrigerators as an alternative to batch filled-cryostats for operating temperatures below 4 K. The systems could be used to cool low-noise microwave maser amplifiers located in large parabolic antennas. These antennas tilt vertically, making conventional liquid-filled dewars difficult to use. The system could also be used for a nontilting beam waveguide antenna to reduce the helium consumption of a liquid helium cryostat. The prototype system is adjustable to provide 700 milliwatts of cooling at 2.5 K to 3 watts at 4.3 K. The performance of the unit is not significantly affected by operation in any physical orientation.

Britcliffe, Mike↗

NASA NTRS1989

A closed-cycle refrigerator for cooling maser amplifiers below 4 Kelvin

A helium refrigerator utilizing the Gifford-McMahon/Joule-Thomson (GM/JT) cycle was designed and tested to demonstrate the feasibility of using small closed-cycle refrigerators as an alternative to batch-filled cryostats for operating temperatures below 4 K. The systems could be used to cool low-noise microwave maser amplifiers located in large parabolic antennas. These antennas tilt vertically, making conventional liquid-filled dewars difficult to use. The system could also be used for a non-tilting beam waveguide antenna to reduce the helium consumption of a liquid helium cryostat. The prototype system is adjustable to provide 700 mW of cooling at 2.5 K to 3 W at 4.3 K. Performance of the unit is not significantly affected by physical orientation. The volume occupied by the refrigerator is less than 0.1 cu m. Two JT expansion stages are used to maximize cooling capacity per unit mass flow. The heat exchangers were designed to produce minimum pressure drop in the return gas stream. Pressure drop for the entire JT return circuit is less than 5 kpa at a mass flow of 0.06 g/sec when operating at 2.5 K.

Britcliffe, M.↗

NASA NTRS1991

Amplitude and phase-shaping effects in beamwaveguides

Results are presented of an investigation on improvements in a geometrical optics (GO) design of a beam-waveguide antenna for operation at multiple frequency bands. Improvements might be possible by changing the design of the lower-frequency input pattern to the beam waveguide. The effects of amplitude and phase shaping the input pattern have been studied with an aperture diffraction model. Accurate vector near-field computations were made rapidly with a spherical wave expansion of the input and scattered fields. Numerical results indicate that for aperture sizes of less than 30 wavelengths, there is insufficient control on defocusing due to amplitude and phase shaping. Design tradeoffs on spillover loss and defocusing are possible by changing the amplitude and phase distribution of the input wavefront for larger size apertures.

Rengarajan, Sembiam R.↗

NASA NTRS1992

New Techniques for Exciting Linearly Tapered Slot Antennas with Coplanar Waveguide

Two new techniques for exciting a linearly tapered slot antenna (LTSA) with coplanar waveguide (CPW) are introduced. In the first approach, an air bridge is used to couple power from a CPW to an LTSA. In the second approach, power is electromagnetically coupled from a finite CPW (FCPW) to an LTSA. Measured results at 18 GHz show excellent return loss and radiation patterns.

Simons, R. N.↗

NASA NTRS1992

A microwave holography methodology for diagnostics and performance improvement for large reflector antennas

This microwave holography technique utilizes the Fourier transform relation between the complex far field radiation pattern of an antenna and the complex aperture field distribution. Resulting aperture phase and amplitude distribution data can be used to precisely characterize various crucial performance parameters, including panel alignment, panel shaping, subreflector position, antenna aperture illumination, directivity at various frequencies, and gravity deformation effects. The methodology of data processing presented here was successfully applied to the Deep Space Network (DSN) 34-m beam waveguide antennas. The antenna performance was improved at all operating frequencies by reducing the main reflector mechanical surface rms error to 0.43 mm. At Ka-band (32 GHz), the estimated improvement is 4.1 dB, resulting in an aperture efficiency of 52 percent. The performance improvement was verified by efficiency measurements and additional holographic measurements.

Rochblatt, D. J.↗