Efficient 3-D moment-method analysis for reflector antennas using a far-field approximation technique

A full 3-D moment-method analysis is used to model the radiation patterns of 10-15 lambda diameter reflector antennas. The moment-method is made computationally efficient by a far-field approximation technique which dramatically reduces the demands of computer memory and CPU time by over 90% and 80%, respectively. The reflector dishes are discretised with an unstructured 3-D finite-element-type mesh of triangles. The moment-method is applied to rotationally symmetric dishes in order to compare the accuracy of the analysis with results from a more conventional body-of-revolution type moment-method analysis.