Design of a correcting plate for compensating the main reflector distortions of a dual shaped system

摘要

The authors present a method of synthesizing a correcting flat plate that compensates for the main reflector distortions of a dual shaped system. The dual shaped reflector system, synthesized for high gain, has a main reflector diameter of 32.8m (not including a noise shield). The time and space slowly varying surface distortions in the main reflector are due to gravitational and thermal effects and reduce the antenna gain. The correcting plate is nominally flat and part of a beam waveguide. It is designed by geometrical optics (GO) to be distorted so as to have a virtual point caustic for the GO rays reflected off the flat plate (in receiving mode).