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Title: A Gain-Reconfigurable and Frequency-Beam-Steerable Additively Manufactured Antenna
Due to the exponential growth of small satellite technology, novel shapes for antennas have been explored to make them low-cost, lightweight, compact, and easy to deploy. The use of frequency beam-scan antennas reduces the complexity of the small satellite front-end by avoiding the need to use phase shifters, especially when a reliable inter-satellite link (ISL) is required to keep up the communication and the formation accurately in a CubeSat swarm mission. This paper reports the design and a manufacturing process focused on in-space manufacturing (ISM) of a fully 3D-printed leaky-wave antenna, using ULTEM 9085 for aerospace applications. The antenna shows frequency beam steering capabilities from 4.4 GHz to 7.4 GHz, and a gain reconfigurable by angular rotation of the ground planes. The resulting antenna shows a measured peak gain of 10.07 dBi at 6.5 GHz, with a gain reconfigurability, as function of the elevation angle of the ground planes, in the range of 0 to 40°, providing an additional gain from 0 to 2 dBi, respectively.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
1944599
NSF-PAR ID:
10215619
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ;
Date Published:
Journal Name:
2021 IEEE Radio and Wireless Symposium (RWS)
Page Range / eLocation ID:
4 to 7
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
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