Lightweight Deployable L-Band Patch Antenna Array for Ice Sounding

An ultra-lightweight L-band patch antenna array is designed for the high sensitivity ground-based ice-sounding radar system. The antenna array achieves a realized gain of 29 dBi, which is benefit from the 2.88 m×1.44 m large aperture size. Despite its large size, the overall weight of the array including power dividers, cables and mechanical structures is only 36 kg and the thickness is less than 2 cm. The modulated design enables easy transportation to polar regions. For low-profile and wideband performance, U-slot air-substrate patch is used as single antenna element. The 16×8 large array operates from 1.17 to 1.48 GHz with a bandwidth of 310 MHz. Also, the antenna array is combined to 8 channels for the radar system, each channel can handle 2 kW peak power with customized power divider design. The antenna array was deployed in Antarctica in 2019 field season.