Everything you need to Know about Horn Antenna

A Horn antenna is a kind of aperture antenna made for microwave frequencies. It has a shape like a horn and helps to transmit signals to a longer distance. Horn antennas offer a wide frequency range. They are also easy to adjust according to the need and give broad bandwidth.

If you have little knowledge of horn antenna, read this blog. In this blog, we will discuss everything about horn antennas, their design and working, benefits and drawbacks. We will also discuss the different kinds of a horn antenna in detail in this blog.

What is Horn Antenna?

A Horn antenna is also known as a microwave horn. This antenna contains a flaring metal waveguide horn to send radio waves in a beam. These horns are mostly used for microwave and UHF frequencies.

This antenna was invented in the year 1897 by Jagdish Chandra Bose. Many experiments were done to invent this antenna. After a few years, another horn antenna was discovered in the year 1938 by Wilmer Barrow and G.C. Southworth. These inventors researched a lot to study the radiation pattern of a horn antenna.

Additionally, a horn antenna has many applications in several fields. It is famous in the areas of microwave and transmission. Normally, the frequency range of the High Gain Horn Antenna is between 300 MHz and 30 GHz. It gives an ultra-high to super-high frequency range.

Types of Horn Antenna

Horn antennas come in various types for different applications and fields. We will now discuss the different kinds of horn antennas below:

• Pyramidal Horn Antenna

You might have got a little idea of this antenna from the name itself. The pyramidal horn antenna has a shape similar to the pyramid and contains a rectangular cross-section. A rectangular waveguide is used in this antenna and flaring is done in the direction of electric field vectors and direction.

You can use a pyramidal horn antenna with rectangular waveguides. It radiates polarized radio waves.

• Sectoral Horn Antenna

The second type of horn antenna is the sectoral horn antenna. In this antenna, online one pair of faces is flared and the other pair is parallel. It also makes a fan-shaped beam in the flared side’s plane and a broad beam on the narrow side’s plane.

This antenna is used for wide search radar antennas. Sectoral horn antenna is divided into 2 types namely E-plane and H-plane. An E-plane antenna is an antenna in which one waveguide wall is flared with an electric field vector direction.

H-plane is an antenna in which waveguide walls are flared with magnetic field vector direction.

• Conical Horn Antenna

Another type of horn antenna is the conical horn antenna. It has a circular cross-section and shapes like a cone. Conical horn antennas make a circular waveguide and a beam like the shape of a pencil.

• Exponential Horn Antenna

The exponential horn antenna has curved sides. It has constant impedance across a wide frequency range and low internal reflectors. Curvature in exponential horn antenna increases with the length.

• Corrugated Horn Antenna

The last type of horn antenna is a corrugated horn antenna. It has grooves and slots inside a horn. Corrugations in these antennas give a wider bandwidth to the horn and smaller side-lobes. They also have a symmetrical radiation pattern.

Advantages of Horn Antenna

Dual Polarized Horn Antenna gives a wider frequency range than other types of antennas. There are many Advantages of Horn Antenna such as:

• Wide Bandwidth

While normal antennas have a short bandwidth, Single Linear Polarized Horn Antenna has a wide bandwidth. The most common horn antennas have a 10:1 ratio. They also come with a 20:1 ratio.

• Simple to Build

One of the major benefits of the Horn Antenna is that it is simple to build. It is one of the oldest types of antennas used around the world for gaining a wide frequency range. It is also easy to connect a horn antenna to the waveguide and coaxial feeder. Moreover, horn antennas have a low standing wave ratio and reduce standing waves.

• Give High Gain

Another benefit of horn antennas is that they offer a high gain. You can use a horn antenna with a parabolic reflector disk to create a horn reflector. It can be combined with the reflector to reduce spurious signals.

• Stable Performance

Horn antennas have a more stable performance than other types of antennas. They work better over the frequency range. Exponential horn antennas have constant impedance over a wide frequency range.

Disadvantages of Horn Antenna

Just like benefits, there are several disadvantages of Horn Antenna such as:

• Aperture Dimensions

One drawback of horn antennas is that it gets gain because of aperture dimensions. They do not work at a higher level. Besides, these antennas also work below the microwave frequency range.

• Radiate Energy in Spherical Wavefront Shape

Horn antennas radiate energy in a spherical wavefront shape and do not give a sharp or directive beam. This radiation pattern will reduce the performance of the antennas.

• Gives a Limited Gain

Horn antenna has a limited gain such as 20 dB. So, if you want to gain a higher gain, you must make the opening of the horn larger to increase the length of the horn. This is the drawback of using horn antennas for the long term.

• Bulky Antenna

Horn antennas are very bulky because of the flare dimensions. You will need large flare dimensions to make a small horn antenna. The length of the flare and flare angle should be large.

Final words

We discussed everything about Horn antennas, their working, design, benefits, and drawbacks. They come in different types and are used in various applications. These horn antennas are used widely in the microwave region. They also contain a high degree of directivity.

Horn antennas are different from a Yagi antenna and an arrow antenna. In these antennas, the directivity is equal to gain. This blog will help to know more details on Horn antenna.

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