High-Gain Tapered Long Slot Array for Satcom Applications in PCB Technology With Folded Corporate Feed Network

This article presents an antenna covering the full frequency band from 17 to 31 GHz for K-/Ka-band satellite communication (Satcom) applications. A long slot array with 64 slots is designed for the radiating aperture. It is fed by a tapered corporate feed network (CFN) to reduce the sidelobe level (SLL) in the radiating plane orthogonal to the slots. A new technique to fold the CFN by a factor up to 65% is introduced without affecting the array performance. This technique can be applied to any CFN in a multilayer system. Both parts are fabricated in printed circuit board (PCB) technology. A pillbox beamformer is used to illuminate the CFN. This beamformer consists of an H-plane horn located in the focal plane of an integrated parabolic reflector. The main beam of the antenna can be steered along the slot plane to provide a ±42° coverage in elevation by changing the position of the horn in the focal plane. The pillbox beamformer is made of aluminum to minimize losses and is fabricated by computer numerically controlled (CNC) milling. The total size of the antenna is
$44.5 \times 33.1 \times 4.3\mathbf {\lambda _{0}}$
, where
$\mathbf {\lambda _{0}}$
is the wavelength at the maximum frequency of operation (31 GHz).