An Electromagnetically Coupled Active Flat Panel Antenna for DBS Reception

An active flat panel antenna offers a number of advantages for DBS reception. In this paper, a newly developed electromagnetically coupled active flat panel antenna which provides electronic beam-tracking is presented. The features of the antenna are: 1)series-parallel fed microstrip array is employed, 2)the array is excited electromagnetically by the coplanar patch connected to the coplanar waveguide, and 3)low noise down-converters and self-phasing units are incorporated into the feed circuits for the electronic beam-tracking. The design of a coplanar waveguide fed coplanar patch and the configuration of a self-phasing active flat panel antenna are discussed. Experimental results of the 9-element unit array antenna are presented.