A Dual Band Loop Antenna with Metal Frame for CubeSat Communication

In this paper, a metal frame antenna is proposed for CubeSat communications. A $100\text{mm}\times 100\text{mm}\times 5\text{mm}$ metal frame is integrated with loop antenna on a $60\text{mm}\times 70\text{mm}$ substrate. The proposed antenna was simulated using HFSS to show its far-filed performance. The simulation results show that the antenna on CubeSat can achieve a maximum gain of 10.48dBi and dual band performance on S-band. In simulation, the reflection coefficients of the proposed antenna are −20.6dB at 2.4GHz with a narrow −10dB bandwidth of 35MHz, and −21.3dB at 2.1GHz with a narrow −10dB bandwidth of 40MHz. The measured results proved that the fabricated antenna operates on dual band centered at 2.1GHZ and 2.5GHz with −19.53dB and −16.61dB return loss respectively. The measured radiation pattern is well matched with simulation to shows good feasibility of the fabricated antenna.