A Modular Architecture for Wide Scan Angle Phased Array Antenna for K/Ka Mobile SATCOM

In this paper a low cost/complexity modular architecture for electronically scanned active phased array antenna (A-PAA) for high throughput K/Ka-band mobile satellite communication (SATCOM) is presented. With this approach, A-PAAs of any size, shape, and configuration can be built of intelligent building blocks (active sub-array modules) to minimize the design complexity and fabrication cost. The design and fabrication aspects of K/Ka A-PAA with wide scanning angle range is presented. The measured results of the modular array show that the antenna main beam can be steered to ± 70
^o
off the boresight at 20/30 GHz. Furthermore, the antenna is able to achieve EVM ~ 7.60 % during the constellation test for 16 QAM and 1.2 Gb/s.