Handset antennas using satellite pack for mobile satellite telephone

The Engineering Test Satellite-N (ETS-N) planned to be launched about 2002 in Japan will test S-band satellite mobile commnunications and broadcasting systems by using geostationary satellite. To realize the satellite handy phone service and CD quality radio, it is required to develop a high-performance multi-beam satellite antenna of more than ten meters deployable reflector and innovative feed system, a high output power transponder with total power of 400 W, an on board processor exchanging several hundreds channels of handy phone calls, and a compact high gain antenna for the satellite handy phone terminal. The baselines for terminal antenna design are as follows. (a) The frequencies are 2.6 GHz for uplink and 2.5 GHz for downlink. (b) The polarization is right-handed circular. (c) Dual mode antenna operation is necessary for cellular and satellite phone. (d) The antenna gain is about 2.5/spl sim/3.0 dBi. (e) The antenna does not track the satellite in orbit, located about longitude 140/spl deg/ east , covering the whole part of Japan. To satisfy the above requirements, this paper proposes a novel handy phone antenna concept called a "satellite pack". This deployable antenna design decreases SAR on human head and is less affected in its radiation pattern by tissue. We present the concepts of the satellite pack and also make measurement to verify the effect of this antenna design using a phantom.