A comparative study of horn antennas suitable for the transmitting antenna array module of MELISSA architecture

Abstract

The MELISSA system is a ground based aperture radar that has been designed for landslide monitoring in Italy. It consists of a linear antenna array of 12 Pyramidal horn antennas present in the transmitting module of the system and another linear array of 12 receiving Vivaldi antennas. It has been proven that an alternate planar antenna array geometry of 2 × 6 pyramidal horn antennas gives a better performance than the 12 linear horns; present in the transmitting module of MELISSA; in terms of directivity, half power beam width and peak side lobe ratio. This paper aims at presenting a comparative study of peak gains and half power beam widths of various other types of individual horn antenna elements that could be used to replace the conventional pyramidal horn in the earlier proposed 2 × 6 planar configuration and thereby revise the MELISSA system.