Adaptive X-Band Satellite Antenna for Internet-of-Things (IoT) over Satellite Applications

摘要

The emergence of new IoT applications in regional and remote areas has increased the need for a global IoT connectivity beyond existing terrestrial network coverage. However in many cases, it is not economically viable to build a dedicated terrestrial network to cover these remote areas due to population sparsity and the lack of business case. In this paper, we propose a framework for designing a phased-array antenna for IoT-over-satellite applications using Nano-satellites. The proposed framework is capable of achieving precise beamforming towards targeted IoT devices, thus boosting the received signal and simultaneously reducing the interference originating from other terrestrial devices in highly populated areas. Utilizing such a framework will allow valuable radio spectrum resources to be shared between satellite and terrestrial users. We also present a practical implementation of this design framework by fabricating an X-band phased array antenna, which has been successfully verified and tested, in terms of its gain pattern and return loss.