RF integrated aperture coupled array antenna for satellite communication at Ku-band

Active microstrip patch antenna in which a high power amplifier MMIC is integrated behind the ground plane of antenna. It is presented to obtain extra power gain and reduce losses at Ku band. The patch antenna integrated with the HPA MMIC has the aperture-coupled feeding structure. The advantages of this structure lie in the reduction of power loss in feed line and spurious effects from active circuit and feeding network. From passive and active single patches to 2/spl times/2 and 2/spl times/4 active arrays, design, fabrication and test are addressed.