Design of a Ku-band broadband circularly polarized magneto-electric dipole antenna for satellite communications

ABSTRACT

In this paper, a broadband circularly polarized (CP) antenna array with stable radiation pattern is proposed for satellite communication applications. The antenna array consists of a 2$\times$2 planar antenna array and a feeding network. Based on the magneto-electric (ME) dipole antenna structure, the electric dipoles are modified, and a pair of shorting pins are introduced to adjust the surface current. The bandwidth problems of circular polarization are effectively improved. Then the 2$\times$2 broadband CP antenna array is designed and fabricated. The measured results show that the −10 dB impedance bandwidth of 56.3% from 11.1 to 19.79 GHz, and the 3 dB axial ratio (AR) bandwidth of 32.1% from 11.72 to 16.20 GHz. The 3 dB gain bandwidth of 44.2% from 11.10 to 17.40 GHz, and the peak gain is 11.07 dBi. Owing to the above excellent performance, the proposed antenna array can be a candidate for satellite communications.

KEYWORDS:

• Broadband
• circularly polarized (CP)
• magneto-electric (ME) dipole antenna
• satellite communications

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The authors confirm that the data supporting the findings of this study are available within the article.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant No. 62001074; in part by the Chongqing Technology Innovation and Application Development Project under Grant No.cstc2019jscx-msxmX0049; and in part funded by the National Key Laboratory of Science and Technology on vacuum electronics.