Design of Cost-Optimised Active Receive Array Antenna for Mobile Satellite Terminals

A low profile scanning antenna for reception of S-DMB is under development in the frame of the ESA funded project "Cost-Optimised High Performance Active Receive Phase Array Antenna for Mobile Terminals (CORPA)". The aforementioned project objectives are the design, prototyping and testing of a complete antenna based on digital beam forming (DBF) providing multimedia reception within the S-DMB system. The antenna is able to electronically scan a circularly polarised beam in the range 8 to 72 degrees, covering DMB satellites and including some margin for vehicle tilt. A conformal, phased array antenna based on DBF has been selected providing an attractive solution for such medium gain antenna. Moreover, DBF allows avoiding a complex phase calibration and provides a good auto-tracking performance in a harsh environment in terms of multipath and interference.