Phase Compensation of Composite Material Radomes Based on the Radiation Pattern

Some compensation methods have been proposed to mitigate the degradation of radiation characteristics caused by composite material radomes, however most of them are complex and not applicable for large radomes, for example, the modification of geometric shape by grinding process. A novel and simple compensation strategy based on phase modification is proposed for large reflector antenna-radome systems. Through moving the feed or sub-reflector along axial direction opportunely, the modification of phase distribution in the original aperture of an enclosed reflector antenna can be used to reduce the phase shift caused by composite material radomes. The distortion of far-field pattern can be minimized. The modification formulas are proposed, and the limitation of their application is also discussed. Numerical simulations for a one-piece composite materials sandwich radome and a 40 m multipartite composite materials sandwich radome verify that the novel compensation strategy achieves satisfactory compensated results, and improves the distortion of the far-field pattern for the composite material radomes. For one-piece dielectric radome, more than 60% phase difference caused by radome is reduced. For multipartite radome, the sidelobe level improves about 1.2 dB, the nulling depth improves about 3 dB. The improvement of far-field pattern could be obtained effectively and simply by moving the feed or sub-reflector according to phase shift of the radome.