A circularly polarized conical beam spherical slot array antenna

Abstract

This paper proposes a circularly polarized conical beam spherical slot array antenna which is suitable for a low elevation angle land mobile satellite communication subscriber. The structure of this antenna type is very simple to fabricate; i.e. a ring of perpendicular slot pairs is cut on an outer surface of a concentric conducting spherical cavity. From the assumption of weak coupling of the slots from the cavity, the conical beam pattern can be obtained. Experimental results that verify the conical beam radiation are in good agreement with the design.