Patent Grant
11456540
The present application is based on PCT filing PCT/JP2019/031500, filed Aug. 8, 2019, which claims priority to JP 2018-221095, filed on Nov. 27, 2018, the entire contents of each are incorporated herein by reference.
The present disclosure relates to an antenna device and an antenna adjustment method that are to perform transmission and reception using a main reflector and a sub-reflector.
A large antenna device that performs transmission and reception by reflection by a main reflector and the sub-reflector is sometimes used at a ground station of a satellite communication system. Techniques for adjusting a position, an orientation and a shape of an antenna in order to improve aperture efficiency of the main reflector and directionality toward a wave source are known (for example, Patent Literatures 1 and 2 and Non-Patent Literature 1).
Patent Literature 1 discloses a modular antenna including (i) a main reflector including main reflector constituting modules and (ii) a sub-reflector including sub-reflector constituting modules, wherein each of the sub-reflector constituting modules is driven by three actuators. Patent Literature 1 mentions that this configuration compensates for a positional error of the modular antenna by the drive mechanism of the sub-reflector, so that the weight and the structure can be reduced or simplified as compared with the case in which the drive mechanism is mounted on the main reflector.
Also, Patent Literature 2 discloses an antenna mirror surface measuring/adjusting device, wherein (i) a plane mirror is larger than an aperture surface of a main reflector and is disposed parallel to the aperture surface, and (ii) an actuator installed on each mirror surface panel of the main reflector is driven stepwise to adjust a position of the mirror surface panel. Patent Literature 2 states that, every time a position of the mirror surface panel is changed, mirror surface adjustment can be made based on a phase distribution on an aperture surface of the main reflector that is obtained from a radio signal that returns by reflecting, by the plane mirror, a radio wave emitted from transmission/reception means.
Also, Non-Patent Literature 1 discloses a technique for compensating for aberrations by adjusting a position of a sub-reflector to a suitable position with respect to a mirror surface of a main reflector that is deformed by its own weight in a large-diameter ground station antenna.
In an antenna device having a large-diameter main reflector, there is a problem in that, when the direction of orientation is changed in an elevation direction, aberration occurs due to self-weight deformation of the main reflector, so the phase at an aperture surface becomes non-uniform and aperture efficiency deteriorates.
Since the modular antenna disclosed in Patent Literature 1 is assumed to be mounted on a satellite, position adjustment is made only by driving an actuator. However, this modular antenna cannot cope with self-weight deformation specific to a large-diameter main reflector of an antenna arranged at a ground station. Also, how to determine suitable positions of the sub-reflector constituting modules with respect to a positional error of the main reflector is unclear.
Also, in the antenna mirror surface measuring/adjusting device disclosed in Patent Literature 2, the drive mechanism is provided on each panel of the mirror surface that is included in the main reflector. As a result, there is a problem in that the number of panels of the large-diameter main reflector and the number of necessary drive mechanisms are large, and thus the cost becomes high. Additionally, installation of a plane mirror larger than the main reflector is not realistic, and there is a problem in that, particularly in a case in which the plane mirror has an elevation angle formed with the vertical direction or the horizontal direction, the installation of the plane mirror is difficult, and the elevation angle characteristic cannot be measured.
Also, in a case in which, as in Non-Patent Literature 1, the entire sub-reflector is moved to a main focal position of the large-diameter main reflector that is deformed due to its own weight, there is a problem in that aberrations in the circumferential direction and the radial direction of the mirror surface of the main reflector remain.
In consideration of such circumstances, an object of the present disclosure is to provide an antenna device and an antenna adjustment method that enable easy adjustment of a sub-reflector with high accuracy, without adjustment of a main reflector, and at low cost.
In order to achieve the above objective, an antenna device according to the present disclosure includes (i) a main reflector, (ii) a sub-reflector including sub-reflector panels and having a reflecting surface facing a reflecting surface of the main reflector, (iii) a primary emitter to receive a radio wave reflected by the sub-reflector, and (iv) sub-reflector panel drive mechanisms to drive the sub-reflector panels, the sub-reflector panel drive mechanisms being coupled to the sub-reflector panels. Additionally, the antenna device is characterized in that a phase calculator (i) calculates a relative phase of an element electric-field vector corresponding to each of the sub-reflector panels based on a change in received electric-field strength of the radio wave received by the primary emitter during driving of the sub-reflector panel drive mechanisms and (ii) determines positions of the sub-reflector panels at which a phase distribution on an aperture surface of the main reflector is minimized.
According to the present disclosure, the phase distribution on the aperture surface is reduced by driving each of the sub-reflector panels constituting the sub-reflector smaller than the main reflector, thereby enabling compensation for aberration due to deformation of the main reflector. Accordingly, the sub-reflector can be easily adjusted with high accuracy, without adjustment of the main reflector, and at low cost.
An embodiment for achieving the present disclosure is described below in detail with reference to the drawings.
The antenna device 1 receives a radio wave emitted from a wave source 18 located at a point that is so distant from the antenna device 1 as to be located in the far field. The wave source 18 is a freely-selected wave source that emits a continuous wave with minute changes in position and in transmission power in a short time, and the wave source 18 is, for example, a satellite, a radio star, or a collimation antenna. Also, the antenna device 1 transmits a radio wave to the wave source 18 existing in the far field.
In the present embodiment, the main reflector 11 includes main reflector panels, and the overall arrangement of the main reflector panels forms a paraboloid. The primary emitter 13 and the transceiver 14 are located in the center of the main reflector 11.
The sub-reflector 12 is provided with N sub-reflector panel drive mechanisms 122_1 to 122_N respectively coupled to the sub-reflector panels 121_1 to 121_N to respectively drive the sub-reflector panels 121_1 to 121_N, and is provided with a sub-reflector drive mechanism 123 that drives the entire sub-reflector 12,
The sub-reflector panel drive mechanisms 122_1 to 122_N can respectively drive the sub-reflector panels 121_1 to 121_N in a direction along the central axis connecting the two foci of the hyperboloid. Also, as illustrated in
The primary emitter 13 is located within a certain range including a second focus of the hyperboloid of the sub-reflector 12. The primary emitter 13 (i) receives a radio wave coming from the wave source 18 and reflected by the main reflector 11 and the sub-reflector 12 and (ii) outputs the radio wave to the transceiver 14. Also, the primary emitter 13 emits, toward the sub-reflector 12, the radio wave transmitted from the transceiver 14. The radio wave emitted from the primary emitter 13 is reflected by the sub-reflector 12 and the main reflector 11 to be transmitted toward the wave source 18 existing in the far field. The primary emitter 13 is a freely-selected antenna module, for example, a horn antenna that widens in a conical shape or a pyramidal shape toward a tip on the side of the sub-reflector 12.
The elevation angle driver 15 drives the main reflector 11 in the elevation direction that is the direction of rotation about the Y axis in
The controller 17 controls attitudes of the main reflector 11 and the sub-reflector 12 based on received signals received by the transceiver 14. The controller 17 includes (i) a phase calculator 171 that calculates phases using the received signals by applying the rotating element electric-field vector method, (ii) an attitude controller 172 that generates, based on information including a result of calculation by the phase calculator 171, information of attitudes of the main reflector 11 and the sub-reflector 12, and (iii) a sub-reflector controller 173 that controls driving of the sub-reflector 12 based on the information of attitude of the sub-reflector 12 generated by the attitude controller 172.
Operation of the antenna device 1 configured as above is described.
In the antenna device 1, the main reflector 11 forms an ideal paraboloid in an initial state in which the antenna device 1 is oriented in a preset elevation direction. When the antenna device 1 is driven in the elevation direction from the initial state, the direction of gravity with respect to the mirror surface of each of the main reflector panels of the main reflector 11 changes, so that the main reflector 11 is deformed from the ideal paraboloid due to self-weight deformation.
The deformation of the main reflector 11 causes an aberration in the propagation distance of the radio wave, and variation occurs in the phase distribution on the aperture surface, so that the aperture efficiency of the antenna device 1 deteriorates. The controller 17 executes attitude control processing for compensating for the aberration caused by the self-weight deformation of the main reflector 11. The attitude control processing is described with reference to
The attitude control processing illustrated in
First, the attitude controller 172 of the controller 17 acquires the shape of the main reflector 11 deformed due to weight thereof, calculates an approximate paraboloid from the acquired shape, and outputs a focal position. The method of acquiring the shape of the main reflector 11 may be a freely-selected conventional method. For example, the antenna device may be oriented at various elevation angles in advance, and the shape may be acquired based on a captured image captured by a camera. Also, the method of calculating the approximate paraboloid may be a freely-selected conventional method. For example, the approximate paraboloid may be calculated using the least squares method for the acquired shape of the main reflector 11.
The sub-reflector controller 173 drives the sub-reflector drive mechanism 123 of the sub-reflector 12 to move the entire sub-reflector 12 to the focal position output by the attitude controller 172 (step S101). As a result, a position of the sub-reflector 12 relative to the main reflector 11 changes, and rough defocus adjustment is made to cause a position of the sub-reflector 12 to match the calculated focal position of the main reflector 11.
Next, in a state in which the main reflector 11 is oriented toward the wave source 18, the sub-reflector drive mechanism 123 is finely driven in a direction of each drive axis by control of the attitude controller 172 and the sub-reflector controller 173, and a position at which received electric-field strength received by the transceiver 14 has a maximum value is determined. The sub-reflector controller 173 moves the entire sub-reflector 12 to the determined position (step S102). Aberration compensation for the main reflector 11 is adjusted by this process from the viewpoint of the received electric-field strength.
The processing up to step S102 enables the focus of the sub-reflector 12 to match the focal position of the approximate paraboloid of the main reflector 11. However, deformation of the main reflector 11 in the radial direction and the circumferential direction, such as deformation represented by the Zernike approximation polynomial, occurs and an aberration due to this deformation remains.
Accordingly, compensation for the residual aberrations is performed by adjusting positions of the sub-reflector panels 121_1 to 121_N. At that time, the phase calculator 171 regards the sub-reflector panels 121_n, where n is a freely-selected integer among the integers 1 to N, as N antenna elements and applies the rotating element electric-field vector method, thereby estimating relative phases on the aperture surface corresponding to panel areas of the main reflector 11 irradiated with radio waves from the respective sub-reflector panels 121_n. The use of this relative phase enables achievement of aberration compensation without measuring an aperture distribution of the antenna device 1. This aberration compensation is executed in steps S103 to S109.
First, the attitude controller 172 sets the integer n to be one (step S103). Next, the sub-reflector panel drive mechanism 122_n discretely shifts, based on control of the sub-reflector controller 173, the position of the sub-reflector panel 121_n in increments smaller than ⅛ of a wavelength of a received radio wave, thereby causing movement by half a wavelength or more in the direction of the central axis connecting the two foci of the hyperboloid (step S104). The phase calculator 171 obtains the received electric-field strength at each position.
The phase calculator 171 uses the rotating element electric-field vector method to obtain, from the position information of the sub-reflector panel 121_n and the received electric-field strength of the radio wave received by the transceiver 14 at each position, the relative phase on the aperture surface in the area corresponding to the sub-reflector panel 121_n in the initial state (step S105).
Afterward, when n is not N (No in step S106), n is incremented by 1 (step S107) and the processing returns to step S104. In this way, the processes of steps S104 to S107 are repeated. When n becomes N (Yes in step S106), the phase calculator 171 calculates relative phases of the element electric-field vectors corresponding to the sub-reflector panels 121_1 to 121_N, thereby obtaining the phase distribution.
The phase calculator 171 calculates positions of the sub-reflector panels 121_n at which the distribution is minimized for the relative phases on the aperture surface corresponding to the panel areas of the main reflector 11 irradiated with the radio waves from the sub-reflector panels 121_n (Step S108). The attitude controller 172 outputs, based on a result of calculation by the phase calculator 171, the position information of the sub-reflector panels 121_n to the sub-reflector controller 173. The sub-reflector controller 173 drives the sub-reflector panel drive mechanisms 122_n to set the positions of the sub-reflector panels 121_n (step S109).
The effect of minimizing the distribution in relative phase is described with reference to
On the other hand, in the present embodiment, the phase calculator 171 performs calculation using the rotating element electric-field vector method, thereby estimating the relative phases on the aperture surface corresponding to the panel areas of the main reflector 11 irradiated with the radio waves from the sub-reflector panels 121_n. Additionally, the phase calculator determines the position of each of the sub-reflector panels 121_n at which the distribution in the relative phases is minimized in the state where the resultant electric-field vector 220 is oriented in a predetermined direction. As a result, the aberration compensation can be made without measuring the aperture distribution of the antenna device 1.
If the radio star or the satellite is the wave source, the elevation angle varies in accordance with the wave source, and the self-weight deformation of the main reflector 11 also varies. However, according to the present embodiment, aberration compensation can be made without depending on the elevation angle. In the present embodiment, each of the sub-reflector panels 121_1 to 121_N is provided with a driving mechanism to compensate for the aberration, so that the aberration compensation can be made at a lower cost than the case in which the panels of the main reflector 11 are provided with the driving mechanisms, and reliability is also improved.
Also, an area of the aperture surface corresponding to each panel of the sub-reflector 12 is wider than that of the main reflector 11. Accordingly, in the case in which the sub-reflector 12 is provided with the driving mechanisms, the element electric-field vectors change more when the panels are moved in comparison to the case in which the main reflector 11 is provided with the driving mechanisms, and there is also an advantage that measurement accuracy is easy to improve in a case of the use of the rotating element electric-field vector method.
As described above, the antenna device 1 according to the present embodiment includes (i) the main reflector 11, (ii) the sub-reflector 12 that includes the sub-reflector panels 121_n and has the reflecting surface facing the reflecting surface of the main reflector 11, and (iii) the primary emitter 13 that receives a radio wave reflected by the sub-reflector 12. The attitude controller 172 calculates the approximate paraboloid from the shape of the main reflector 11 that is driven in the elevation direction, and the sub-reflector drive mechanism 123 moves the sub-reflector 12 to the focal position of the approximate paraboloid. Also, the sub-reflector drive mechanism 123 moves the sub-reflector 12 to the position at which the received electric-field strength has a maximum value. Additionally, the phase calculator 171 (i) calculates, based on the change in the received electric-field strength of a radio wave received by the primary emitter 13 during fine driving of each of the sub-reflector panel drive mechanisms 122_n respectively coupled to the sub-reflector panels 121_n, the relative phases of the element electric-field vectors corresponding to the sub-reflector panels 121_n and (ii) determines the positions of the sub-reflector panels 121_n at which the phase distribution on the aperture surface of the main reflector 11 is minimized. As a result, the sub-reflector 12 can be easily adjusted with high accuracy, without adjustment of the main reflector 11 and at low cost.
As described above, according to the present disclosure, the antenna device 1 includes (i) the main reflector, (ii) the sub-reflector that includes the sub-reflector panels and has the reflecting surface facing the reflecting surface of the main reflector, (iii) the primary emitter that receives a radio wave reflected by the sub-reflector, and (iv) the sub-reflector panel drive mechanisms that are coupled to the sub-reflector panels and drive the sub-reflector panels. Additionally, the phase calculator (i) calculates, based on the change in the received electric-field strength of the radio wave received by the primary emitter during driving of the sub-reflector panel drive mechanisms, the relative phases of the element electric-field vectors corresponding to the sub-reflector panels and (ii) determines the positions of the sub-reflector panels at which the phase distribution on the aperture surface of the main reflector is minimized. As a result, the sub-reflector can be easily adjusted with high accuracy, without adjustment of the main reflector and at low cost.
The foregoing describes some example embodiments for explanatory purposes. Although the foregoing discussion has presented specific embodiments, persons skilled in the art will recognize that changes may be made in form and detail without departing from the broader spirit and scope of the invention. Accordingly, the specification and drawings are to be regarded in an illustrative rather than a restrictive sense. This detailed description, therefore, is not to be taken in a limiting sense, and the scope of the invention is defined only by the included claims, along with the full range of equivalents to which such claims are entitled.
For example, in the above-described embodiment, when the main reflector 11 is moved in the elevation direction, the sub-reflector panel drive mechanisms 122_n and the sub-reflector drive mechanism 123 are driven to finely adjust the positions of the sub-reflector panels 121_n, so that the phase calculator 171 obtains the positions of the sub-reflector panels 121_n for which an aberration is compensated. On the other hand, as illustrated in
Also, in the attitude control processing illustrated in
Also, a radio wave reflected by the sub-reflector 12 is made directly incident on the primary emitter 13 or a radio wave emitted from the primary emitter 13 is made directly incident on the sub-reflector 12. However, the antenna device 1 may be provided with one or more focusing reflectors 19 between the sub-reflector 12 and the primary emitter 13.
The positions of the focusing reflectors 19 relative to the elevation angle driver 15 or the azimuth angle driver 16 may be fixed or movable. Also, when positions of the focusing reflectors 19 are movable, the positions of the focusing reflectors 19 when the main reflector 11 is moved in multiple elevation angle directions in advance may be stored in the storage 174.
Also, the main reflector 11 is configured to form a paraboloid shape as a whole. However, other shapes including a spherical surface as a whole may be formed. Also, in the case of other shapes, high efficiency of the antenna device 1 can be achieved by optimizing the position, orientation and shape of the sub-reflector 12 and the positions and orientations of the focusing reflectors 19.
Also, the antenna device 1 is configured to perform transmission and reception with the wave source 18 existing in the far field. However, limitation of performance to either transmission or reception is permissible.
This application claims the benefit of Japanese Patent Application No. 2018-221095, filed on Nov. 27, 2018, the entire disclosure of which is incorporated by reference herein.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| JP2018-221095 | Nov 2018 | JP | national |
| Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| PCT/JP2019/031500 | 8/8/2019 | WO |
| Publishing Document | Publishing Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| WO2020/110375 | 6/4/2020 | WO | A |
| Number | Name | Date | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 6288683 | Deguchi et al. | Sep 2001 | B1 |
| 20180109002 | Foo | Apr 2018 | A1 |
| Number | Date | Country |
|---|---|---|
| 5-75336 | Mar 1993 | JP |
| 6-291541 | Oct 1994 | JP |
| 2000-201019 | Jul 2000 | JP |
| 2001-196842 | Jul 2001 | JP |
| 4109722 | Jul 2008 | JP |
| Entry |
|---|
| International Search Report and Written Opinion dated Oct. 8, 2019, received for PCT Application PCT/JP2019/031500 Filed on Aug. 8, 2019, 9 pages including English Translation. |
| Notice of Reasons for Refusal dated Jan. 19, 2021, received for JP Application 2020-558089, 8 pages including English Translation. |
| Zheng-Xiong et al., “The position and Attitude of Sub-Reflector Modeling forTM65m Radio Telescope”, Asia-Pacific Microwave Conference (APMC), vol. 1, 2015, 3 pages. |
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 20220052459 A1 | Feb 2022 | US |
