Compact Ka-band Cassegrain antenna with multimode monopulse tracking feed for satcom-on-the-move applications

High data rate satellite communications in Ka-band are an important and ongoing area of research and development. Especially compact antennas with high gain are of interest for bidirectional land mobile scenarios. In this paper, we describe a volume-efficient Cassegrain reflector antenna fed from a novel PCB-based multimode monopulse feed chain. The structure provides a dual circular polarisation communication mode as well as the TM01 mode for multimode monopulse tracking [1], [2]. The antenna is operational at 20GHz and 30 GHz, to cover the downlink and the uplink frequency ranges in Ka-band. This work contributes to the development of a ground-segment satellite user terminal for land-mobile communications in disaster scenarios.