EHF SATCOM Terminal Antennas

The Department of Defense (DOD) MILSATCOM community is rapidly moving toward deployment of Extremely High Frequency (EHF) earth terminals by the late 1980's. As a result, the communications system tradeoffs have solidified into more meaningful terminal specifications, including antenna requirements. Some aspects of antenna requirements at the selected EHF have not been encountered or emphasized in earlier SATCOM applications. It is the objective of this paper to review the system factors of antenna performance and to discuss some of the more pertinent tradeoffs leading to affordable solutions. This paper is aimed at the practicing antenna systems engineer and engineering management personnel of both equipment contractors and procuring agencies. The discussion attempts to distinguish between mobile and fixed platform applications, and concludes with a mobile antenna example at 20/45 gigahertz (GHz) which has been designed, built, and tested.