Survey on Mitigating the Problems of Parabolic Reflectors for Efficient Communication

Abstract

In this paper, various problems associated with parabolic reflectors, its causes and the approach to mitigate these problems are discussed. The problems include; side lobe radiations, edge diffraction, aperture blockage, cross polarisation, feed spill over, feed illumination taper, pointing error, surface error and phase error. These problems have adverse effect on the overall gain, efficiency and directivity of the antenna thereby inhibiting efficient communication process. The result of the survey reveals that, phase error tends to be the most difficult of the aforementioned problems due to the challenges associated with locating the phase centre at reflector’s focus. The aperture blockage seems to have the least method of solution, because the problem can be solved by changing the centre feed to an offset feed. Detailed investigation of these problems and the relevant solutions are necessary, since parabolic reflectors are among the most common antennas with diverse application.