A study on the circular patch antennas using conductive non-woven fiber fabrics

The planar array antenna supported by an inflatable tubular ring is being studied as an interesting satellite antenna configuration. One development is the use of conductive non-woven fabrics to form the circular patch antennas. Such materials allow inflatable planar antennas to become lighter and easier to stow comparing with the conventional form which uses polyamide film as the antenna plane of the planar array antenna and copper leaves as the circular patch antennas. In this paper, the characteristics of circular patch antennas constructed with several kinds of conductive non-woven fabrics and conventional copper leaf are compared to determine if conductive non-woven fabrics provide sufficient advantages.