Design and Realization of a Compact Size Active Antenna for UHF Satellite Communication

This paper presents the design and fabrication of a low noise amplifier and a Folded Inverted F Antenna loaded with an Split Ring Resonator cell for UHF satellite communication. The antenna is designed and simulated using a 3D EM simulator. It has a total size of 32mm*32mm*1.5mm, an omnidirectional radiation pattern in the xy-plane and a gain of -16.4 dB. The designed LNA has a low current consumption of 3.2 mA at 3.3 V, a maximum noise figure of 1.16 dB and a minimum gain of 16.5 dB in the band from 400 to 466 MHz. EM circuit co-simulations are performed with ADS for the LNA design. The LNA and antenna are prototyped and simulation results are validated by performing measurements of S-parameters using the PNA-X and noise figure measurements using the cold source and Y-factor method. The active antenna will be the result of integrating the LNA and the antenna. A satellite detection test is performed using the evaluation board of Kineis, the designed LNA and antenna.