Circularly Polarized Small-Footprint Hybrid Ring-Patch Stacked Antenna for Pico-Satellites

This paper presents a small-footprint wideband, wide beamwidth circularly polarized (CP) hybrid stacked patch-ring microstrip antenna for cubesat applications. The antenna ground plane size is chosen such that it can be accommodated on the top plate of a cubesat for communicating with high-orbital satellite networks. Hybrid perturbations are applied on patch and ring for obtaining wide axial ratio beamwidth. The axial ratio bandwidth achieved is significantly larger compared to typical CP patch antennas. This design uses only one probe-feed which significantly reduces the system complexity in cubesat applications. A simulated impedance bandwidth (for VSWR ~ 2) of 8%, AR ~ 3 dB bandwidth of 6% and beamwidths in the order of 96 degrees are achieved from this antenna.