Compact Orthomode Transducer for Field Experiments of Radar Backscatter at L-band

A study of miniaturization of an L-band orthomode transducer(OMT) for field experiments of radar backscatter is presented in this paper. The proposed OMT is not required the additional waveguide taper structures to connect with a standard adaptor by the newly designed junction structure which bases on a waveguide taper. Total length of the OMT for L-band is about 1.2 (310 mm) and it`s a size of 60 % of the existing OMTs. And, to increase the matching and isolation performances of each polarization, two conducting posts are inserted. The bandwidth of 420 MHz and the isolation level of about 40 dB are measured in the operating frequency. The L-band scatterometer consisting of the manufactured OMT, a horn-antenna and network analyzer(Agilent 8753E) was used STCT and 2DTST to analysis the measurement accuracy of radar backscatter. The full-polarimetric RCSs of test-target, 55 cm trihedral corner reflector, measured by the calibrated scatterometer have errors of -0.2 dB and 0.25 dB for vv-/hh-polarization, respectively. The effective isolation level is about 35.8 dB in the operating frequency. Then, the horn-antenna used to measure has the length of 300 mm, the aperture size of , and HPBWs of and on the principle E-/H-planes.