A review of antenna design and development for Indian regional navigational satellite system

The Indian regional navigational satellite system (IRNSS) developed by the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) is an autonomous regional satellite navigation system which is under the complete control of Government of India. The requirement of indigenous regional navigational satellite system is driven by the fact that access to Global Navigation Satellite System, like GPS is not guaranteed in hostile situations. Design of IRNSS antenna at user segment is mandatory for Indian region. The IRNSS satellites will be placed at a higher geostationary orbit to have a larger signal footprint and minimum satellites for regional mapping. IRNSS signals will consist of a Special Positioning Service and a Precision Service. Both will be carried on L5 band (1176.45 MHz) and S band (2492.08 MHz). As it is be long range communication system needs high frequency signals and high gain receiving antennas. So, different antennas can be designed to enhance the gain and directivity. Based on this the rectangular Microstrip patch antenna, planar array of patch antennas and planar, wideband feed slot spiral antenna are designed by using various software simulations. Use of array of spiral antennas will increase the gain position. Spiral antennas are comparatively small size and these antennas with its windings making it an extremely small structure. The performance of the designed antennas was compared in terms of return loss, bandwidth, directivity, radiation pattern and gain. In this paper, Review results of all antennas designed for IRNSS have presented.