Low cost high performance portable phased array antenna system for satellite communication

Abstract

A high performance phased array antenna system for receiving satellite communication signals, with a structural top layer formed as a perforated plate (or solid plate made of very low loss plastic material), a middle layer functioning as the single layer antenna aperture layer, preferably in the form of a single layer printed circuit board on which is formed an array of antenna elements and plurality of stripline feed network circuits, each combining in-phase outputs from several adjacent antenna elements, the bottom layer functioning as the ground plane for the antenna aperture layer and also including a single level waveguide combining network for combining in-phase outputs from stripline feed network circuits electromagnetically coupled to respective transition probe holes of the waveguide combining network. Each antenna element is preferably a dual polarization octagonal patch antenna element disposed on a common surface of the antenna aperture layer. Each feed network circuit is preferably in a form of an air-stripline feed network separated by a layer of air dielectric from the ground plane and preferably is on the same surface of the antenna aperture layer as the antenna elements. The single level waveguide combining network is preferably an integral structure including dual orthogonal polarization waveguide sections and dual orthogonal polarization ports. The dual orthogonal polarization waveguide sections lay in the same plane and preferably are asymmetrically disposed on either side of a common wall, with each containing a branched cavity symmetrically disposed about a respective centerline.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.