Compact Antenna for Small Satellite Applications

The combined effort of the Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia and the Kyushu Institute of Technology (KYUTECH) to develop a small-satellite antenna is presented in this paper. Microstrip antennas offer an ideal solution to satellite communication requirements due to their light weight and low profile. In this paper, a compact single-layer coaxial-probe-fed circularly polarized high-gain patch antenna designed for HORYU-IV nanosatellite S-band communication is presented. HORYU-IV aims to acquire data about high-voltage discharge phenomena in low Earth orbit (LEO). This will enhance the understanding of satellite charging, and overall satellite reliability can be improved for future high-power space programs. The proposed antenna consists of four asymmetric V-shaped slits, i.e., one at each corner of a rectangular patch, and a parasitic rectangular strip. The proposed antenna achieves a sufficient beamwidth for LEO satellite application and less than 3-dB axial ratio for the entire field of view. A prototype of the antenna was developed with a 1.57-mm-thick singlelayer Rogers substrate with a relative permittivity of 2.2, and the measured results are consistent with the simulation.