Trihexagonal switched-beam Tx-only Ku-band terminal antenna for mobile satellite applications

This paper presents the development of a low profile, low-cost, switched-beam antenna array terminal for mobile satellite applications. An original aperture topology is presented, which is inspired from the so-called trihexagonal tiling of the plane. The array consists of three interlaced sub-arrays based on series feeding, which are combined in various ways to produce the twelve sector beams that cover the whole field of view. Simulation results showed that a directivity of 11 dB is achieved over almost the whole expanse of each of the twelve beams.