A Novel Multi-Beam Lens Antenna for High Altitude Platform Communications

Waveguide-form multi-beam lens antenna has several shortcomings, such like large size and weight of feed source. According to such situation, a lens antenna applied to high altitude platform is designed. The proposed antenna uses printed Yagi-Uda antenna as feed unit and applies CST MICROWAVE STUDIO® electromagnetic simulation software to analyze. The proposed antenna is manufactured and tested in microwave anechoic chamber. And the simulated and experimental results show that frequency range of the proposed antenna is from 1.77GHz to 2.44GHz with reflection coefficient less than -10dB, relative bandwidth is 31.8%. Antenna gain at 2.1GHz is 9.3dB, which basically accords with the simulated result. Finally, a multi-beam lens antenna fed independently with 6 printed Yagi-Uda antenna units is designed. The proposed antenna has characteristics of wide band, high gain, small volume and light weight. Thus it can be applied in the future high altitude platform communication system.