Simulation of PIM generated on the mesh reflector

A novel model is presented for the simulation of passive intermodulation (PIM) generated on the mesh reflector. The model considers the contacts between wires as the main PIM sources. The electro-thermal coupling could be the main nonlinear mechanism responsible for PIM for contacts between the wires coated by gold. The third order intermodulation level responses of 0.25*0.25 square mesh sample with different contact radius are presented, which shows that the PIM level varies for contact radius larger than 2um with two tone 2GHz and 2.1GHz irradiated. The PIM roll-off(3rd order) was found to be 3dB per dB, which shows qualitative agreement with the measured data published by previous authors.

I. Introduction

The use of a deployable reflector antenna provides a high gain, lightweight system that can be compactly stowed for launch, then deployed on orbit. But the generation of PIM products at the mesh reflector surface may result in interference when it is used in a transmit/receive system, whose transmission paths can be shown in Fig. 1. The PIM characteristics of mesh reflector has been studied in several papers using experimental method [1] [2] [3]. But fewer published materials are focused on simulation. Therefore, a model intended to evaluate mesh reflector PIM characteristic should be developed. Fig. 1.

Transmission paths of pim