A High-gain 3D-printed Phased Array Antenna for Satellite Applications

In this paper, a high-gain 3d-printed phased array antenna is proposed for satellite applications. A multi-mode horn antenna is designed as the radiating element of the proposed phased array antenna. By optimizing the spline function curve of the inner wall of the horn section, multi-mode electric field is excited in the horn aperture, therefore the radiating element can obtain higher aperture efficiency and more compact size. The phased array antenna is composed of 25 4 × 4 subarrays and the horn section of each subarray is fabricated by the 3d-printed technology. The simulated results indicate that the proposed phased array antenna has the bandwidth of 17.8–21.2 GHz with the voltage standing wave ratio (VSWR) below 1.35, and achieves ±8.7° beam scanning range in both E and H plane. The peak gain of the phased array antenna is 42.2 dBi at center frequency 19.2 GHz and the coverage gain of the phased array antenna are 40.9 dBi and 41.3 dBi in E and H plane at center frequency 19.2 GHz, respectively.