Design of high gain printed antenna arrays

Abstract

Modern satellite and mobile communications systems continue to push the bandwidth capabilities and antenna subsystems. Among the many different kinds of array elements, Printed microstrip architectures have been widely investigated and are attractive for their light weight, small size, low profile, cost effectiveness, and can be fabricated and integrated easily. The patch element can be conformal to a certain shaped surface which is often required for high speed moving objects such as satellites, aircraft and missiles. Here we present the double-sized printed-dipole antenna array for satisfying satellite structure, bandwidth and gain requirement. 16-element, 64-element and 256-element wideband printed-dipole arrays are fabricated, analyzed and successfully optimized for satellite TV receiver applications. Different printed-dipole antenna structure has been investigated to improve both return loss bandwidth and gain bandwidth including different power divider and balun structure. The different spacing between two adjacent antenna elements is also investigated to maximize the antenna performance, such as the mutual coupling and antenna pattern. Finally, a large 256-elememt double-sized printed-dipole is developed for satellite TV communications.