Efficient estimation of multibeam antenna performance based on reflector configurations

Broadband connectivity has driven significant satellite system developments over the past decade. Multiple technologies have been proposed to meet connectivity requirements. Multibeam antennas (MBA) for Very High Throughput Satellite (VHTS) systems are presented as one of the technologies with promising future perspectives due to their good performance. These systems are commonly based on a high number of feeds in several configurations to generate many beams, which highly increases their complexity. One of the preferred systems are imaging antennas based on single reflector configurations, as they provide a good compromise between scanning capabilities, high gain and system complexity. Unfortunately, traditional methods for the analysis of reflector antennas are based on time-consuming numerical integrations which combined with the large number of beams to be estimated, leads to high computing times. During this talk, an efficient tool for the analysis of reflector antennas when a large number of beams is used is presented. The tool can work with several configurations (SFPB, MFPB, imaging antennas…) and its main objective is the optimization of the antenna payload system in terms of coverage metrics such as Carrier-to-Interference ratio and throughput.