On the impact of phased array beam forming antennas on LEO satellite downlink capacity

Abstract

Phased array antennas are widely used in LEO communication systems. This hold for ground terminal antennas and LEO satellite antennas. Main purpose of phased array antennas is the electrical steering of the antenna without using mechanical devices. The drawback of such configurations is the discrete set of pointing vectors among the antenna controller can select the best suited steering. This paper shows how discrete beam pointing can reduce the average data rate of LEO satellite downlink connections.