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Electrical & Electronic Engineering

A compact wideband circularly polarized fractal slot antenna with rectangular island for X-band satellite applications

ORCID Icon, , , &
Article: 2322813 | Received 17 Oct 2023, Accepted 20 Feb 2024, Published online: 28 Feb 2024
 

Abstract

This paper introduces a compact, circularly polarized spidron-fractal slot antenna with a rectangular island. The reflection-coefficient |S11| of the proposed antenna covers the band from 7 GHz to 10 GHz. The proposed antenna is circularly polarized with an axial-ratio (AR) bandwidth that extends from 7 GHz to 10 GHz. It offers simultaneous dual circular polarization (RHCP and LHCP). The gain of the proposed antenna varies between 4 dBi and 6.9 dBi. The simulated efficiency reaches 97%. The overall dimensions of the antenna are 19.7 x 23 x 0.508 mm3 (0.55λ0 x 0.65λ0 x 0.014λ0), making it suitable for CubeSats with limited surface area. The proposed antenna can be employed for both the X-band satellite downlink (from 7.25 GHz to 7.75 GHz) and uplink (from 7.9 GHz to 8.4 GHz) frequency bands. Additionally, the antenna can be utilized in small satellite Synthetic-Aperture-Radar (SAR) systems operating from 9 GHz to 10 GHz, military applications, and RFID tag tracking-equipment. A prototype of the proposed antenna has been fabricated and then measured using Vector-Network-Analyzer (VNA) and inside an Anechoic chamber. The measurement results of the proposed antenna are in excellent match with the simulated results.

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, Mostafa Mahmoud Rabie, upon reasonable request.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).