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Gain enhanced circularly polarized antenna integrated with artificial magnetic conductor for S‐band pico‐satellites
Author(s) -
Lokman Abdul Halim,
Soh Ping Jack,
Azemi Saidatul Norlyana,
Jamlos Mohd Faizal,
Lago Herwansyah,
Abdullah AlHadi Azremi
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
international journal of rf and microwave computer‐aided engineering
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.335
H-Index - 39
eISSN - 1099-047X
pISSN - 1096-4290
DOI - 10.1002/mmce.21462
Subject(s) - radiation pattern , conductor , materials science , optics , dipole antenna , optoelectronics , antenna gain , antenna (radio) , radiation , bandwidth (computing) , electrical engineering , physics , antenna efficiency , telecommunications , engineering , composite material
A circularly polarized (CP) antenna integrated with an artificial magnetic conductor (AMC) plane is presented. The AMC plane is aimed at enhancing the gain of the CP antenna, besides reduced back‐radiation, and avoiding radiation toward other high‐frequency components on the CubeSat. It consists of a 3 × 3 array of diamond‐shaped unit cells placed behind the complementary dipole‐based antenna. To enable deployability and compact deployment size, the AMC structure is designed on a thin flexible Kapton film as substrate, whereas its metallic components are formed using Nickel conductive paint. Meanwhile, the CP antenna is designed on a thin Rogers RO4003C substrate and located on top of the AMC plane at a 20 mm distance. The combined structure operates at 2.4 GHz with satisfactory reflection and radiation performance. It is sized at 99 mm × 99 mm × 21.485 mm 3 , with 450 MHz (18%) of 10 dB impedance bandwidth and 250 MHz (10%) of 3 dB axial ratio bandwidth. The AMC plane also improved its gain from 3.05 dBi up to 5.35 dBi.