RF Designs and Simulations

A pillbox antenna is a linearly polarized cylindrical reflector embedded between two Parallel plates. It is usually fed by a waveguide. The pillbox is part of a family of antennas called fan beam antennas which produce a wide beam in one plane and a narrow beam in the other. The pillbox antenna can be dual polarized and is also a relatively wide bandwidth antenna. The advantages of using a pillbox antenna for radar applications are It is easy to design and the cost of production is low. It is dually-polarized and it is also a wide band antenna. It has a high power handling capability The pillbox feed is traditionally located at the focal point of the reflector. For symmetrical antennas this is located in the middle of the aperture. Either a pin or waveguide feed can be used, depending on the system requirements. Further variations of these feeds can be found through the use of stubs which are used to obtain better impedance matching and reflector illumination, not discussed