Dual-band circularly polarized slotted patch antenna for S-band CubeSat communication system

Most communication systems developed for the space industry are employing two passive antennas: one being dedicated to the uplink channel and the other to the downlink channel. Our challenge in this paper is to develop a dual-band antenna operating for both channels. This work presents the dual-band antenna design process and describes its simulated performances measurements and results using CST MWS. The antenna consists of a square patch with four slots around edge, two layers of substrate separated by a ground plane, and a suitable feed network located at the bottom. The design shown has a small footprint of 70× 70 × 7.012mm suitable for CubeSat communication system. The designed antenna achieves the following main characteristics: in uplink a bandwidth of 141.6MHz (from 1.9533 to 2.0949GHz), a gain of 7.13dB with a return loss of -23.62dB , and an axial ratio of 1.254dB for the 2.034GHz frequency. In the downlink, a bandwidth of 153.3MHz (from 3.1519 to 3.3052GHz), a gain of 7.3dB with a return loss of -19.18 dB , and an axial ratio 2.649dB for the 3.252GHz frequency.