Design of a Dual-polarization Phased Array Antenna for Ku-Band Satellite Communications

A dual-band dual-polarization phased array antenna (PAA) is proposed for Ku-band satellite communication in this paper. The shared-aperture radiating element is constructed by an orthomode transducer (OMT), a tapered horn, and a radiating cavity. The radiation of transmitting band (Tx) horizontal polarization and receiving band (Rx) vertical polarization is realized based on the polarization duplexing of the OMT. Moreover, the
$1\times 8$
linear array excited by two E-plane waveguide feeding networks is employed as the subarray of PAA. Accordingly, an
$8\times 8$
phased array antenna is designed. The proposed PAA has steering angles of up to
$\pm 6^{\circ}$
, with gain up to 34.2 dBi and 32.9 dBi at the Tx and Rx band, respectively. Furthermore, the cross-polarization level is below -35.6 dB. The port-to-port isolation is higher than 40 dB over the operating bands. Hence, the proposed phased array antenna provides a good alternative for satellite applications.