Multifunctional phased array antenna design for satellite tracking

The purpose of this paper is to present a design procedure for a phased array antenna. Phased array antennas are becoming very popular because of their capability for electronic beam forming. In this paper two phased array antennas will be presented, one for a geostationary satellite and other for a polar orbit satellite. A computer program specially written for this purpose phased array antenna design (PAAD) will also be demonstrated. This design method has the particularity of being able to create nulls of field in any direction of space, and that can be used for beam changing in real time applications. This is achieved by implementing an extended version of the Schelkunoff polynomial method applicable to planar arrays. In this paper, a description of two possible tracking systems (for both geostationary and polar orbits) will also be shown. These systems have many applications for industry and space technology and some of them will be presented as well. And finally, these phased array antennas will be designed considering microstrip patches as element sources. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.