Application of EBG Structures to the Design of a Multibeam Reflector Feed

This work deals with the design, analysis, and measurement of a novel multibeam reflector feed at X band. The whole system is composed of a five-horn array and two layers of electromagnetic bandgap (EBG) material. The goal of this antenna is to obtain high gain over a wide bandwidth, while maintaining a compact size. An efficient optimization process was carried out to find the optimum dimensions of the feed antenna. The final design was built and measured. High illumination performance was achieved. The feed antenna provided 5.5% of 3 dB gain bandwidth and 3.1% of 1.5 dB gain bandwidth, which is higher compared to designs previously reported in the literature.