The Design, Fabrication, and Evaluation of Millimeter Wave Lenses for Beamed Energy Applications

摘要

Beamed energy methods have the potential to open doors to improved space-based energy transfer systems. The sheer diversity and quantity of both proven and theoretical beamed energy applications provide ample reason to research methods by which they can be improved. Sufficient transmission efficiency can lead to the creation of links along which collected or generated energy can be transmitted to benefit the receiving system. While ground-based facilities will likely possess sufficient acreage to create a system using hundreds of large parabolic reflectors, satellites do not possess such a luxury. This study seeks to show another way in which the propagation of electromagnetic energy in the millimeter wave range can be improved. Three metal lenses were designed using the optical properties of electromagnetic waves, fabricated with aluminum sheet metal, and tested inside an anechoic chamber to quantify their effects upon a propagating beam of microwave energy. Radial data sweeps taken at different distances show a consistent improvement in energy beam propagation in the boresight direction. Up to 70% higher normalized power values were achieved at increasing distances from the source accompanying an expected decrease in beamwidth thereby showing the lenses' successful focusing of electromagnetic energy in free space. These results have the potential to aid in the creation of an improved beamed energy system concept, particularly when the transmitting constituent is not ground-based.