A Low-Profile Sequential Rotation-Fed Circularly Polarized Annular Aperture Antenna Array for Earth Coverage Applications

Abstract

This paper presents a new kind of circularly polarized (CP) earth coverage antenna array for small satellites. Different from conventional antenna arrays, its element is annular aperture with CP radiation, which is more suitable to produce earth coverage shaped pattern. By adjusting each element's excitation magnitude, phase and polarization, good shaped pattern can be obtained. For a better illustration, a low-profile prototype with two annular aperture elements for CubeSat applications working at 5GHz is designed. The annular aperture elements are formed by circular patch antenna, and planar inverted-F antennas. A sequential rotation-fed network is also designed to feed the elements. The performance of the array proves the feasibility of proposed theory and array design method.