A Low Profile, Ultra-Lightweight, High Efficient Circularly-Polarized Antenna Array for Ku Band Satellite Applications

A novel low-profile, ultra-lightweight, high-efficient circularly polarized (CP) planar patch antenna array is reported for Ku-band satellite TV reception applications. The basic radiating element of the antenna array is realized by a 2 × 2 corner-removed patch subarray. This 2 × 2 patch subarray is centerfed by a rectangular coupling aperture etched on the top surface of a substrate-integrated-waveguide cavity. A novel compact sequential rotation feeding technique is adopted to broaden the operating bandwidth without occupying additional area. The 2×2 CP subarray can be easily scaled up for large size antenna arrays due to its single layer feeding network and compact radiating elements. In addition, the patch radiators are printed on a thin layer of Polyimide film backed by a piece of supporting foam to minimize the entire weight. To verify the design concept, a 96-element (16 × 6) CP patch array was fabricated and tested. Measured results show that the operating bandwidth is 700 MHz from 11.55 to 12.25 GHz. The gain is stable across the operating bandwidth with a realized peak gain of 26.4 dBic. The height of the antenna is 0.05 λ
₀
and the total weight is only 66.5 g. It serves as an excellent candidate for Ku-band satellite applications.