Design of a C-band High Gain Microstrip Antenna Array for CubeSat Standard

This paper presents a low cost C-band microstrip antenna array with high gain, composed of 2 × 2 patches of 14.38mm by 18.42mm each, and compatible with CubeSat standard at 5.8 GHz center frequency. The feeding method is corporate feed network matched to 50 Ω line by different impedance lines. The patch's Mutual Coupling is decreased by rotating 45° each patch, obtaining a return loss of -32.02 dB, a Voltage Standing Wave Ratio of 0.4 dB and a maximum gain of 13.34 dB. Simulations with a 3U CubeSat structure with deployed VHF and UHF antennas shows little deviations. The final array size is of 74 mm × 74 mm.