Synthesis of spacecraft array antennas for intelsat frequency reuse multiple contoured beams

A method is described for synthesis of planar array antennas where both the amplitude and phase of each radiating element is a design variable. The method improves the computational efficiency of conventional optimization procedures based upon, for example, minimax or least square algorithms. Application of the proposed method demon-strafes the feasibility of spacecraft frequency reuse array antennas with multiple contoured beams for typical Intelsat sixfold frequency reuse requirements. It is demonstrated that repetitive optimization will reduce the number of array elements required. Shifting the array aperture normal toward a beam center will dramatically improve the frequency sensitivity of the beam coverage.