Electronic Scanning Characteristics of a Simple Satellite-Tracking Array Antenna

Kenichi KANEKO  Toshimitsu TANAKA  Masaharu TAKAHASHI  Koichi ITO 

Publication
B - Abstracts of IEICE TRANSACTIONS on Communications (Japanese Edition)  Vol.J89-B  No.9  pp.1696-1704
Publication Date: 2006/09/01
Online ISSN: 1881-0209
Print ISSN: 1344-4697
Type of Manuscript: Special Section PAPER (Special Issue on Design, Analysis and Measurement Techniques in Antennas and Propagation to Meet Expanding Applications of Radio Systems)
Category: 
Keyword: 
switching circuit,  patch array antenna,  ETS-VIII,  beam switching,  mobile satellite communications, 

Full Text(in Japanese): PDF(2MB)

Summary: 
The geostationary satellite, Engineering Test Satellite-VIII (ETS-VIII) launching plan is in 2006. ETS-VIII will conduct orbital experiments on mobile satellite communications for audio and video applications at the S-band frequency. In this laboratory, the development of an antenna that will be put on the roof of a car is made. Here, simple satellite tracking patch array antennas with three electronically-steered beams have been developed. One of the specificity is that this antenna does not require any phase shifter and the beam can be switched by use of a simple "ON", "OFF" feeding method. Therefore, system's miniaturization and low cost can be expected. In this paper, the switching circuit, which is necessary to deflect the beam is designed, measured and discussed. In addition, the measurement of the beam switching characteristics of the antenna flanked by the proposed switch is performed. As a result, it is confirmed that simple satellite tracking is possible with this antenna.