This master's thesis deals with a design of a planar parabolic reflector antenna. The thesis is divided into several parts. The first section is dedicated to the theory of the parabolic antenna design and a basic introduction of the SIW technology which is used for the realization of an antenna prototype. The second chapter deals with the design of individual parts of the antenna (i. e. a primary and secondary reflector and an antenna feeder excited by a waveguide) for particular assignment. The third part is focused on modeling the designed antenna using ANSYS HFSS. Other parts of the thesis include a conversion of the proposed antenna to the SIW technology and a design of a transition between the antenna and a feeding waveguide WR15. The last part of the thesis deals with measuring of the reflection coefficient and the radiation pattern of the fabricated antenna prototype.

The objective of this research is to develop a design process for origami-adapted products and demonstrate it using aerospace mechanism examples. Origami-adapted design is a type of origami-based design. Origami-based design ranges from abstract to concrete applications of origami to design and includes: origami-inspired design, origami-adapted design, and origami-applied design. Origami-adapted design adapts origami fold patterns into products while preserving functionality. Some of the desirable attributes of origami that are sought after in design include: 1) reduced number of parts, 2) stowability, 3) deployability, 4) transportability, 5) manufacturability from a flat sheet of material, 6) ease of miniaturization, 7) a single manufacturing technique (folding) and 8) low material volume and mass. The proposed origami-adapted design process has four steps: define the problem, identify an origami solution, modify the fold pattern, and integrate. Intermediate steps apply tools to analyze and modify the origami fold pattern according to the design requirements. The first step defines whether origami is a viable solution by evaluating a set of starting criteria. Once it has been determined that origami is a viable solution, the design process guides the designer through a series of steps that modify the origami crease pattern until the final design is reached. The origami-adapted design process is applied to the design of three aerospace mechanism examples: an origami bellows, an expandable habitat, and a deployable parabolic antenna. The design process is followed throughout the design of these aerospace mechanisms. The origami bellows is designed and tested as a highly compressible origami bellows for harsh environments. It can be designed to endure 100,000+ cycles in fatigue and underwent testing for thermal cycling, abrasion, and radiation. The second example is a proof-of-concept expandable habitat for implementation as a module on the International Space Station. The design process aides in selecting an origami crease pattern and modifying it for thick, rigid materials. The last example is a deployable parabolic antenna. It is based on the flasher fold pattern with a wedge of the pattern removed to create curvature. It is experimentally verified to be approximately parabolic. The examples are shown to follow the origami-adapted design process and that the design process is flexible to accommodate a design's needs.

O objetivo deste trabalho é projetar e desenvolver um sistema automatizado inteligente para o alinhamento de uma antena receptora com refletor parabólico aplicado a comunicação via satélite. Com base em procedimentos empíricos para o alinhamento manual de uma antena parabólica, foi concebida e desenvolvida uma solução tecnológica empregando hardware e software. O sistema concebido utiliza um GPS, para prover a localização espacial instantânea da antena receptora e um receptor digital, que fornece a relação portadora / ruído de recepção. A principal contribuição deste trabalho foi o projeto e desenvolvimento de um sistema computacional inteligente, denominado Sistema Inteligente de Alinhamento de Satélite que visa a automatizar o alinhamento de antena receptora. Para um determinado satélite, o sistema utiliza a informação sobre a qualidade do sinal recebido para acionar um servomecanismo responsável pelo alinhamento da antena. Verificou-se que quando a antena estiver na posição desejada, a relação portadora ruído deverá estar acima de 8 dB para uma boa qualidade de recepção. Foi desenvolvido um projeto de um sistema inteligente para uma varredura em torno do valor de referência de posição da antena, o qual se denominou ajuste fino da posição da antena. Nossa inédita abordagem para o ajuste fino projetou-se um controlador fuzzy do tipo Mandani, cujas regras foram geradas de acordo com o processo de posicionamento manual da antena parabólica. Nossa solução permitiu melhorar a relação portadora / ruído de recepção. / The objective of this work is to design and develop an intelligent automated system for the alignment of a receiving antenna with parabolic reflector applied to satellite communication. Based on empirical procedures manual for the manual alignment of a parabolic antenna, we designed and developed a technological solution using hardware and software. The system uses a GPS to provide the initial spatial location of the receiving antenna and a digital receiver to provide the carrier-to-noise ratio. The main contribution of this work was the design and development of an intelligent computational system which aims at automating the receiving antenna alignment. For a given satellite, through the dynamic handling of relocate the receiving antenna, the system uses information about the quality of the received signal to drive the servo responsible for aligning the antenna. We found that, the antenna is in the desired position, the carrier-to-noise ratio should be above 8 dB for a good reception quality. We developed the project of an intelligent system to scan around the reference antenna position value, which was called the antenna position fine tuning. Our new approach consisted in a fuzzy controller type Mandani, generated according to the manual process of maneuvering the dish. Our solution has improved the carrier-to-noise ratio by repositioning the antenna in the desired position.

This diploma thesis deals with a study of low-profile directional antennas, followed by design and optimization of parabolic reflector antenna in centimeter and millimeter band. The first part of this work is focused on the analysis of several kinds of directional antennas, mainly on parabolic reflector and on SIW technology, which will be used for final antenna realization. The next part of this project is about the particular concept of the substrate integrated parabolic antenna for 60 GHz ISM band, its simulation and optimization in the CST Microwave Studio software. The final part of this thesis is devoted to the results achieved.