High efficiency horn with hexagonal aperture for antenna arrays

Abstract

High aperture efficiency horn antenna with hexagonal aperture is proposed. Such horns can be used as elements of antenna arrays with hexagonal (triangular) grid. Hexagonal aperture allows to fill aperture of the arrays without gaps. Also, proposed horn has optimized profile, so that field distribution in its aperture is close to uniform. This allows to increase gain and aperture efficiency of the antenna compared with other horn antennas for arrays with hexagonal grid. The proposed horn antenna can be used in direct radiating arrays or in feed arrays of multibeam and array-fed reflector antennas.