Microwave characteristics of a wireless power transmission panel toward the orbital experiment of a solar power satellite

Toward the orbital demonstration of a solar power satellite (SPS), a breadboard model of the SPS has been developed for preliminary experiments including wireless power transmission. The model forms a thin panel structure with a thickness of 6 cm, and the panel consists of three layers being functionally assigned to a transmission antenna, microwave amplification and control, and thermal radiation, respectively. Microwave amplified up to 160 W is emitted from a large-scale phased array antenna with 256 microstrip elements. In order to evaluate the effect of multiply arranged antennas to the emission, the measurement of the radiation pattern is conducted for different relative positions of the antenna panels. Additionally, the steering of the transmission beam is achieved as an initial demonstration for retrodirective control.