A parallel plate slot-pair array dual polarization antenna for small satellite SAR

A parallel plate slot-pair array antenna panel with dual circular polarization for application in space-based Synthetic Aperture Radar has been designed and fabricated. Multi-objective genetic algorithm is used to find an optimal set of slot-pair linear array power coupling coefficients. HFSS software is used to simulate the structure. The fabricated antenna panel shows aperture efficiency of 50.1% and 49.2% at 9.65 GHz for RHCP and LHCP beams respectively. Frequency dependency of the gain, and beam-shift between RHCP, LHCP beams are studied.