The majority of surface area on a small satellite is taken up by solar panels for power. Integrating antennas with solar panels, would save a valuable amount of satellite surface area, and thus directly contribute to the size reduction and multi-functionality of solar panel. Furthermore, such integration does not require deployed mechanism and therefore is cost-friendly design.Two types of integrations are presented in this paper. The first type is to place optically transparent antennas directly on top of after-market solar cells. Meshed conductors with optical transparency higher than 90% are used to design antennas in this case. The second type is to utilize the area between solar cells on the solar panel to design slot antennas. The slot antennas are highly integrative and lie on the same plane with the solar cells without blocking solar energy.The paper discusses both types of solar panel antennas that can be conveniently integrated with after-market solar cells, providing a novel and cost-friendly solution for small satellite system.
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