Design and Measurement of Low-Profile, Metal-only, Offset Parabolic Stepped Reflector Antenna for Emerging CubeSats

The needs for low-profile high gain antennas have significantly evolved in the recent past due to the possibilities of advanced space missions with CubeSats. In this paper, we describe the development of a low-profile, offset, metal-only stepped parabolic reflector antenna which can be integrated with the CubeSat form factor with minimal deployment complexity. The reflector surface consists of multiple parabolic sections that are confocal and thus provide a collimated beam in the far-field. As a representative example, an offset stepped reflector with a diameter of 20 cm and a profile height of 7.9 mm at 19 GHz is designed, fabricated and measured. The performance of this stepped reflector is comparable to that of an ideal parabolic reflector, however with a significant reduction in profile height.