High gain planar antenna arrays applied in mobile satellite communication

Two large and low profile panel antenna arrays used as receiving and transmitting antennas for mobile satellite communications are described. The two arrays have an overall size of 120×20.7×1.3cm³ and 107.5×20.4×1.7cm³, respectively, and exhibit high gains and adequate efficiencies due to effective array designs. For the receiving panel array, a method using a number of high efficiency sub-arrays combined with a novel active integrated global feed network is proposed. For the transmitting panel array, a number of high efficiency sub-arrays together with a novel compact waveguide feed network is employed. Based on the above techniques, two large panel antenna arrays are successfully developed. We present detailed designs of the sub-arrays, the passive and active feed networks, and the vertical transitions. Simulated and experimental results show that the designed receiving and transmitting panel arrays achieve the measured gains and efficiencies of 34.1dBi, 48.2% and 33.5dBi, 36.3%, respectively, which indicates that the proposed antenna panels are good candidates for future satellite communications applications.