A flexible deployable CubeSat antenna

This paper describes the design procedure of a deployable antenna for Cubesat applications operating in the UHF frequency band of 437 MHz. Due to the expected large size for operation in this band, the meanderline and Vivaldi miniaturization and broadbanding techniques are used to obtain a wider impedance bandwidth. This is to ensure the size compatibility of the proposed antenna to the compact Cubesat chassis, and to ensure operation with different orientations in space. The antenna is designed using CST Microwave Studio software, and is aimed to be integrated with the RF components in the Cubesat platform. The antenna is capable of operating in the 437 MHz band with a 10 dB impedance bandwidth of 5% and a gain of 4.1dBi.