An Optimal Procedure for the Design of Discrete Constrained Lens Antennas with Minimized Optical Aberrations. Part III: Three-Dimensional Architectures with an Extended Field of View

Abstract

In this paper, an innovative procedure is proposed for the design of three-dimensional discrete lens antennas characterized by an extended field of view. While in a companion paper the design procedure was based on the definition of multifocal constrained lenses and on their evolution in rotationally symmetric ones, in this paper, lenses are assumed from the beginning to be rotationally symmetric and are derived by enforcing minimized optical aberrations specifically for the largest scanning directions. It is shown that, for discrete lenses exhibiting a feeding array with a cross section, projected in a plane perpendicular to the main lens axis, larger as compared to the back lens cross section, there are significant improvements (15–20%) in terms of maximum aberrations and, at the same time, similar or slightly improved accommodation in terms of volume can be obtained as compared to the architectures considered in the companion paper. Because of this property, the proposed lens antennas may be particularly useful in emerging applications requiring an extended field of view.