Modeling Antenna Beams

Walter Brisken National Radio Astronomy Observatory 2011 Sept 22

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What to learn from this talk EM simulations of antennas can be complicated ∗ Many people have spent careers on the subject ∗ No single solution exists ∗ There are several levels of approximation valid in different regimes Ability to describe antennas is a limitation ∗ Antennas are not perfect (manufacturing tolerances, . . .) ◦ e.g., ALMA feeds ∗ Detailed geometry is time dependent (gravity, wind, weathering, . . .) ∗ Beam-solving may need to become standard calibration practice But, sophisticated modeling is already pretty good . . . ∗ . . . and many tools are available 2 / 24

Why model beams at all? Engineering ∗ Trade-off between Tsys and gain ◦ Answer depends on Trec , focal plane size, and other specs ∗ Understand and/or minimize instrumental polarization ∗ Determine key antenna parameters ∗ Understand observed antenna defects Deconvolution & imaging ∗ Changing parallactic angle ∗ Different primary elements (e.g., ALMA & VLBI) ∗ Wide fields of view (e.g., EVLA) RFI cancellation ∗ Not really subject of this meeting ∗ Nulling of RFI from known directions

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Imaging

See Sanjay Bhatnagar’s slides . . . 4 / 24

Why is primary beam modeling hard? Some important dimensions ∼ λ ∗ Wires, gaps between panels, nuts & bolts ∗ Small structures are effective scatterers ∝ λ2 Some important dimensions  λ ∗ −→ large computational problem Difficult to fully describe an antenna ∗ Unmodeled scatterers ∗ Manufacturing defects ∗ Limited rigidity & pointing errors ∗ Electronic gain drifts and atmosphere hinder measurement Lots of special cases ∗ Self-shadowing of curved surfaces ∗ Resonant structures

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Why is primary beam modeling hard (2)

Images courtesy Alvy Ray Smith; http://alvyray.com/Photography/PhotoVLA.htm 6 / 24

Levels of electromagnetic beam modeling 0. No model (complexity is O1) ∗ Assume unit gain in all directions ∗ This is the default assumption usually used! 1. FT of aperture pattern (ON log N ) ∗ Predicts general beam shape (e.g., Airy disk) with nulls, side lobes 2. Geometrical optics (ray tracing; Olarge × N ) ∗ Better beam shape ∗ Polarization can be computed ∗ Cannot handle caustics or electrically small features ∗ E.g., my software (cassbeam) 7 / 24

Levels of electromagnetic beam modeling (2) 3. Physical optics (complexity is ON 2 ) ∗ Computes currents on surfaces and wires ∗ Uniform Theory of Diffraction (UTD) integrated (http://www.cvel.clemson.edu/modeling/tutorials/ techniques/gtd-utd/gtd-utd.html) ∗ E.g., GRASP 9 4. Method of Moments (ON 2 log N ) ∗ Best for small structures ∗ Multi-path and resonance structures fully solvable ∗ Very slow for large problems ∗ E.g., NEC2 and its variants 5. Quantum Optics? (OeN ) 8 / 24

Model elements What is N ? ∗ N is the number of grid points in model ∗ Each usually represents a current or electric field ∗ 4 or 6 free parameters (R & I for 2 or 3 dimensions) ∗ Elements are not necessarily spatially compact (e.g., MoM) How many elements are needed? ∗ Depends on field configuration and desired extent of calculation ∗ 0.1 to 50 per λ2 for areas (typical) ∗ 0.3 to 5 per λ for wires and perimeters (typical) ∗ Ray-trace methods can often get away with far fewer ◦ Aperture fields tend to be slowly varying 9 / 24

Hybrid modeling

∗ Often it is most effective to use different techniques for different aspects of a problem ∗ E.g., use MoM to simulate a feed pattern and PO to simulate full antenna beam

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GRASP 8

See Bruce Veidt’s slides . . .

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Cassegrain geometry Subreflector Ray path

Aperture

Feed phase center

Feed Primary

Vertex

∗ Ray path (from feed phase center to aperture) is constant length for all rays ∗ Rays are normal to the aperture ∗ Subreflector shape can be uniquely determined by this length, the feed location, and the shape of the primary 12 / 24

cassbeam

What is it? ∗ Geometric optics simulator for Cassegrain systems ∗ Designed for analysis of VLA and VLBA primary beams ∗ Guts of it are in Sanjay Bhatnagar’s A-projection (in CASA) What does it produce? ∗ Beam shapes: Jones matrices as function of aperture or sky position ∗ Performance metrics: Tsys , gain ∗ Efficiency analysis

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cassbeam tutorial

Getting started ∗ cp -r /home/brisken/tutorial-cassbeam .

# into your home

directory

∗ cd tutorial-cassbeam ∗ .

setup # set up $PATH and $LD LIBRARY PATH

∗ cassbeam vla.in # try it out! ∗ tigger vla.I.FITS # view the beam Documentation ∗ gv cassbeam.ps

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The VLA

Point

Coordinates (meters)

A. Feed

0.975, 1.676

B. Intersection of subreflector and primary axis

0.0, 8.479

C. Edge of primary

12.5, 4.325

D. Inner edge of paneled primary

2.0, 0.112

E. Base of strut

7.550, 1.594

F. Top of strut

1.391, 9.217

G. Prime focus

0.0, 9.0

H. Vertex of primary

0.0, 0.0 15 / 24

Sample input name = VLA sub_h = 8.47852 feed_x = 0.97536 feed_y = 0.0 feed_z = 1.67640 geom = vla_geom feedtaper = 13.0 feedthetamax = 9 legwidth = 0.27 legthick = 0.36 legfoot = 7.55 legapex = 10.93876 hole_radius = 1.98 pol=1,0,0,0 oversamp=1.0 roughness=0.0003 Trec=20.0 freq = 1.5

# meters from vertex to subreflector # meters from optic axis to feed ring # height of feed ring from vertex # file containing figure of primary # degrees # meters; - for X shaped, + for + shaped # # # #

meters from optic axis at dish meters from vertex meters RCP

# 300 micron surface roughness # receiver temperature # GHz 16 / 24

Sample output (performance metrics) Spillover eff = primary = subreflector= Blockage eff = Surface eff = Illum eff = phase eff = amp eff = Diffract eff = Misc eff = Total eff = Gain = Tsys = ground = sky = rec = Aeff = Aeff/Tsys = l beamshift = m beamshift = l beam FWHM = m beam FWHM = Peak sidelobe =

0.946406 0.998412 0.947911 0.855810 0.999644 0.996446 1.000000 0.996446 0.849469 1.000000 0.685333 105833.42 = 50.25 dBi 26.075 K 3.108 K 2.968 K 20.000 K 336.412286 m^2 12.901504 m^2/K 0.000001 deg -0.000000 deg 0.480216 deg 0.479970 deg 0.034835 = -14.579823 dB 17 / 24

Sample output (images)

Amplitude

I

Phase

Q

Blockage

U

V 18 / 24

Beam properties

1. Beam voltage patterns are smooth 2. Voltage patterns change sign across nulls 3. Beam squint from offset feed 4. Cloverleaf stokes Q and U (why?)

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Algorithm Choose one polarization state For each grid point on aperture: 1. Trace ray into feed, calculating the subreflector point along the way 2. Calculate amplitude as product of feed pattern and

dΩ dA

3. Propagate the polarization vector from the feed back to aperture 4. Multiply by phase factor Lν (a constant by design for unperturbed system) 5. Zero amplitudes of shadowed points Fourier transform aperture field into far-field Repeat for other orthogonal polarization state 20 / 24

Limitations Diffraction not included ∗ Diffraction around subreflector and struts most severe ∗ Diffraction efficiency is estimated very crudely ∗ Low frequencies affected worst Struts enter only as shadow Feed pattern assumed to be Gaussian with perfect polarization ∗ This would be relatively simple to change Very wide fields of view (∼ 1 radian) poorly approximated

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Antenna defects

Small scale defects ∗ Scatter power in all directions ∗ From surface roughness ∗ From small scatters within antenna ∗ Hard to model Large scale defects ∗ → changes in small-scale beam structure (esp. first sidelobe) ∗ From optical misalignment (cassbeam pathologies) ∗ From misfigurement of surfaces ∗ From poorly modeled feed 22 / 24

Numerical Electromagnetics Code (LLNL)

∗ Version 2 (NEC2) in public domain ◦ GPLed nec2++ variant and others available ◦ http://www.si-list.net/swindex.html#nec2c ∗ Version 4 available with a license ◦ But export restrictions apply ∗ A method of moments integral equation solver ∗ Structures are described as wires and surface patches ∗ Bridges the gap between a circuit and beam simulator ◦ Calculates impedances and currents at feed points

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Antenna design considerations ∗ For high dynamic range imaging, both a good beam and good knowledge of it are required ∗ RFI immunity and rejection will be stronger Simplify optics ∗ Keep optical path free of scatterers ∗ Minimize unnecessary sharp angles ∗ Make use of shapes that are easy to model ∗ Antenna beam will scale more perfectly with frequency Make use of symmetry ∗ Modeling is simpler ∗ Cancellation of some artifacts ∗ VLA is a bad example! 24 / 24

Modeling Antenna Beams - GitHub

Sep 22, 2011 - ... already pretty good ... ∗ ... and many tools are available .... Designed for analysis of VLA and VLBA primary beams. ∗ Guts of it are in Sanjay ...

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