Design Of Inexpensive Printed Array For Space Communication With Moving Vehicles

In this article we describe a mobile communications antenna consisting of concentric rings of circularly polarized circular patches. For certain sets of relative phases, optimization of geometry and excitation amplitudes by simulated annealing synthesizes a conical beam with a maximum at a desired θ and satisfactory directivity within a desired θ range. An example of a two-ring array 50 cm in diameter with directivity > 3 dBi between θ = 35° and θ = 50° is presented.