X-Band SAR Antenna Design for a CubeSat Formation-Flying Remote Sensing Mission

Abstract

This paper presents the design of the receiving antenna of an upcoming formation-flying synthetic aperture radar (FF-SAR) based on the CubeSat standard and on a preexisting spaceborne SAR of opportunity. The receiving antenna operates at X-band and is compliant with the imaging modes of the FF-SAR, namely a stripmap mode for signal-to-noise ratio improvement (IM1) and a High-Resolution Wide-Swath mode for the monitoring of large areas (IM2). A large reflector has been designed to meet the high-gain requirement in IM1, while the wide coverage needed in IM2 is ensured by a reconfigurable patch array feed. Full-wave analysis shows that the designed receiving antenna achieves 37.42 dBi gain in IM1 and 12.1 degree half-power beamwidth in IM2.