Thesis (MScEng)--Stellenbosch University, 2013. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Airborne seeker antennas are usually enclosed within a dielectric radome for protection against their harsh operational environment. However the presence of a radome can introduce serious degrading effects on the radiation and electrical performance of the enclosed antenna. The degradation effect studied in this report is that of Bore Sight Error (BSE). BSE is a squint in the pointing accuracy of the antenna due to the enclosing radome. A ray-tracing approach is presented that is able to analyse the BSE of seeker radomes in general and is especially suited to electrically large radomes where other computational electromagnetic techniques become overly computationally intensive.
The ray-tracing algorithm is wrapped in a GUI which, given the radome, antenna, polarisation and incidence plane parameters will compute the BSE for any set of requested scan angles. Close agreement was obtained with measured BSE performance available in literature. Due to easy setup and fast computation time it is demonstrated that the GUI can be efficiently used for iterative radome design and optimisation. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Luggedrae soekantennes is normaalweg omhul binne ‘n dielektriese antennekoepel vir beskerming teen ‘n strawwe omgewing. Die teenwoordigheid van ‘n antennakoepel kan egter ernstige nadelige effekte op die straling en elektriese werkverrigting van die omhulde antenne hê. Die nadelige effek wat in hierdie verslag ondersoek word, is dié van die “Bore Sight Error (BSE).” BSE is ‘n afwyking in die akkuraatheid van die antenna se rigtingwysing as gevolg van die antennakoepel. Straal-natrekking wat die BSE van soek-antennekoepels in die algemeen kan analiseer word beskryf. Hierdie tegniek is veral gepas vir elektries groot antennekoepels waar die berekenige vir EM tegnieke te intensief raak.
Die straalnatrekkingsalgoritme word omvat in ‘n grafiese gebruikerskoppelvlak. Gegee die parameters van die antennekoepel, antenne, polarisasie en invallende vlak, sal die BSE vir enige stel skandeerhoeke bereken word. Goeie ooreenstemming was verkry, vergeleke met gemete BSE vanuit die literatuur. Die eenvoudige opstel van die koppelvlak en vinnige berekeningstyd wys daarop dat die koppelvlak doeltreffend gebruik kan word vir iteratiewe antennekoepel ontwerp en optimering.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:sun/oai:scholar.sun.ac.za:10019.1/79991 |
| Date | 03 1900 |
| Creators | Barnard, Daniel David |
| Contributors | Palmer, K. D., Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Engineering. Dept. of Electrical and Electronic Engineering. |
| Publisher | Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | en_ZA |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | 83 p. : ill. |
| Rights | Stellenbosch University |
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