A Circularly Polarized Multiple Radiating Mode Microstrip Antenna for Satellite Receive Applications

• Published in: IEEE transactions on antennas and propagation 2014-07, Vol.62 (7), p.3490-3500
• Main Authors: Labadie, Nathan R., Sharma, Satish Kumar, Rebeiz, Gabriel M.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Active feed network; Antenna feeds; Antenna measurements; Antenna radiation patterns; Antennas; Apertures; Applied sciences; beam peak and null steering; Beams (radiation); Circularity; Exact sciences and technology; Global Positioning System; Global Positioning System (GPS) antenna; Global positioning systems; GPS; Impedance; microstrip patch; Ports (Computers); Position (location); Radiocommunications; Radiolocalization and radionavigation; Satellite telecommunications. Space telecommunications; Simulation; Steering; Telecommunications; Telecommunications and information theory
• ISSN: 0018-926X; 1558-2221
• DOI: 10.1109/TAP.2014.2320860

A beam peak and null steering multiple radiating mode based microstrip patch antenna is presented for satellite receive applications operating at L1 Global Positioning System (GPS) band. Two collocated microstrip patch antennas were designed to produce TM 11 and TM 21 radiating modes. These orthogonal and circularly polarized radiation patterns were combined enabling full hemispherical steering of a single beam peak and null. Using theoretical analysis and full-wave simulation, the multimode aperture was designed to operate over a 25 MHz bandwidth centered at 1.575 GHz, which covers the L1 GPS band. Impedance and radiation pattern measurements of the passive antenna aperture were in close agreement with the simulated data. Next, this antenna was integrated with an active feed network allowing full hemispherical control over the beam null position and limited beam peak scan in ≈ 5 ° increments. Using a simple calibration scheme, the measured beam peak and null elevation angles were programmed to within 68% and low axial ratio 3 dB over all steering angles.