A CubeSat Antenna Using a Deployable Reflectarray
Name |
Year |
Jhen-Long Syu, Chang-Yi Li, and Bo-Ru Lin |
2017 |
Keywords |
|
deployable, reflector antenna, ssatellite antennasspace communications, UHF antennas |
A deployable cubesat antenna is proposed in this project. This antenna aims at satellite communications, where a high gain antenna is a basic requirement. The design environment is 3 U, where 1 U is a cube with dimensions of 10 cm × 10 cm × 10 cm. The prototyping cubesat is fabricated using three-dimensional printing. To increase the peak gain, we design a deployable reflectarray. This reflectarray can be stored in the 3 U volume; however, as the cubesat is launched, the reflectarray is deployed using a spring. Thus, the peak gain of a WiFi antenna is increased from 2 dBi to 12 dBi. The simulated and measured reflection coefficient shows that this antenna has good impedance matching when it is deployed.