Effects of the Number of Active Receiver Channels on the Sensitivity of a Reflector Antenna System with a Multi-Beam Wideband Phased Array Feed

TL;DR

This paper presents a modeling method for reflector antenna systems with wideband phased array feeds, analyzing how the number of active receiver channels impacts system sensitivity, with numerical results for the APERTIF system.

Contribution

It introduces a new modeling approach to evaluate the influence of active receiver channels on antenna sensitivity, specifically applied to the APERTIF system.

Findings

Increasing active receiver channels improves sensitivity.

Numerical results demonstrate the relationship between channel count and performance.

The model aids in optimizing phased array feed designs.

Abstract

A method for modeling a reflector antenna system with a wideband phased array feed is presented and used to study the effects of the number of active antenna elements and associated receiving channels on the sensitivity of the system. Numerical results are shown for a practical system named APERTIF that is currently under developed at The Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy (ASTRON)