Reflector antennas with mesh surfaces: contact or no contact at wire intersections?

The authors develop a model capable of predicting the effects of mesh electrical contacts on antenna performance by determining the mesh reflection/transmission coefficients. These coefficients can then be used in a diffraction analysis program to determine the reflector's far-field pattern. A generalized method of moment/Floquet expansion technique is used to formulate the problem for an arbitrary mesh cell configuration. Representative numerical results are constructed for contact and no-contact mesh surface models. Results are compared to measured data and good agreement is observed.<>