A wideband dual circular polarization feed chain for satellite antennas at K/Ka bands

This paper presents the development of a wideband dual circular polarization feed chain applying for satellite antennas at K/Ka bands. The proposed feed chain mainly consists of a wide band common Tx-Rx corrugated horn, an orthogonal mode junction (OMJ), a turnstile junction, a K band polarizer, a Ka band polarizer and connecting waveguides. By optimizing the design parameters of these basic components utilizing different kinds of electromagnetic simulation software, the whole feed chain presents an excellent performance, and the wide range of frequency bands about 14.8% at Tx (10.1% at Rx) is obtained, which covers the operating bands of recent mainly K/Ka satellite antennas and the multiple beam satellite antennas (Tx: 17.7∼20.2 GHz; Rx: 27.5∼30.0GHz). Details of the feed chain design are described, and experimental results of the constructed prototypes are presented and discussed. Due to its high performance, the feed chain can be applying to the fixed satellite, broadcast satellite, and broadband satellite services.