High-Gain, Broadband Radial Elliptical-Slot Array Antenna with Side-Lobe Mitigation for Low-Cost Satellite Communication Systems

This paper presents a high-gain and broadband radial elliptical-slot array (RESA) antenna with side-lobe mitigation technique for low-cost satellite communication systems. The aperture of the proposed slot array antenna comprises a set of orthogonal elliptical slots with monotonic slot length variation alongside the radius of the aperture. The design comprises radiating slotted top plate and bottom ground plate parallel to one another separated by an optimal distance of 5.25 mm which is
$1.05\lambda$
. The design is back-fed using a disk-head radiator probe. The overall dimensions of the proposed slot array antenna with the air-gap taken into account are
$300\times 300\times 5.75mm^{3}$
. Simulation results show that the proposed slot array antenna has a broadband operating frequency range from 45 GHz to 110 GHz and beyond, covering both V and W frequency bands with a fractional bandwidth of 88.8%. The peak gain of the proposed design is 35.6 dBi at 60 GHz. The array exhibits a maximum half-power beam width of 9.5°, a low sidelobe magnitude of - 4.12 dBi and a overall simple design indicates its suitability for low-cost SATCOM (satellite communications) applications.