Tri Band Radome Design for Airborne Antennas

The fabrication and measurement of a sample flat panel is proposed to evaluate a novel design for a tri-band, airborne radome that requires high angle transmission because of its aerodynamic shape. This design implements matching in order to improve the multi-band, wide angle transmission. Although the concept of matching is well-developed as microwave technique, its application to radomes has been prevented by a lack of a practical, efficient fabrication method for doubly curved shapes. Radant Technologies, Inc. has developed a novel, but practical method for implementing multi-band, wide angle designs for doubly curved, laminate radomes. A construction sample panel of the multi-band, wide angle design for the tri-band, airborne radome will be fabricated and measured for Ku-, K-, and Ka-band transmission for incidence angles from 0° to 60°. These will be used to establish a measurement-based model for electrical performance calculations for the FAB-T radome shape and system antenna. These calculations will be obtained by a Ray Trace method that includes losses due to the material loss tangent, interface reflections, polarization mismatch, and phase distortion. Beam pointing error, side lobe degradation and other radiation pattern distortions will also be evaluated