Design of a planar multifunctions antenna

This paper presents the design and the experimental characterization of a hybrid prototype consisting of two antennas dedicated to a space application. The first antenna is a patch array with a microstrip feed network communicating with a satellite; the second antenna is a wire patch antenna (WPA) communicating with a base station (Fig. 1). The main lobe of the patch array radiates in the zenith direction with a circular polarization. The whole array antenna has been optimized taking into account the strong mutual coupling between the patches. The WPA radiates an omnidirectional lobe with a linear polarization. The prototype was studied with the software CST-Micro wave studio and the feed network has been designed with Agilent ADS.