Effective Lossy Conducting Surface for Electromagnetic Simulation Analyses of Mesh Reflector Antennas for Satellite Application

In this paper, we propose an effective lossy conducting surface (ELCS) for the efficient analysis of mesh reflector antennas for signal intelligence (SIGINT) satellite applications. To convert the complex real mesh structure into a simple ELCS, a unit cell was designed by modeling the mesh as a surface patch. Subsequently, the reflectivity was examined in an infinite periodic structure simulation environment. The conductivity with the same reflectivity as that of the mesh was derived at each sample frequency by varying the conductivity of the ELCS, and the reflectivity of the actual mesh was compared with that of the proposed ELCS. The results showed good agreement with an average error of less than 0.4 %. The radiation patterns of a metallic parabolic reflector antenna was then compared with those of a deployable reflector antenna with the ELCS, revealing bore-sight gains of 36.6 dBi and 34.2 dBi, respectively.