Antennas for broadband and mobile satellite communications

The satellite communications market has experienced a constant growth in the last few years and it is expected to more than triple in the next five years. This growing trend is based, to a large extent, on the enormous success of wireless cellular telephony and on the worldwide diffusion of the Internet. Future satellite missions are likely to require better link performances (G/T, EIRP) and more efficient frequency reuse schemes. Multiple beam antennas (MBA) will be needed to cope with the gain, beam shaping and frequency reuse requirements of such missions. The paper discusses the evolution of satellite communications antenna requirements, presenting current developments of satellite antennas for mobile and broadband communications missions.