Gain enhanced circularly polarized antenna integrated with artificial magnetic conductor for S-band pico-satellites

摘要

A circularly polarized (CP) antenna integrated with an artificial magnetic conductorrn(AMC) plane is presented. The AMC plane is aimed at enhancing the gain of the CPrnantenna, besides reduced back-radiation, and avoiding radiation toward other highfrequencyrncomponents on the CubeSat. It consists of a 3 × 3 array of diamondshapedrnunit cells placed behind the complementary dipole-based antenna. To enablerndeployability and compact deployment size, the AMC structure is designed on a thinrnflexible Kapton film as substrate, whereas its metallic components are formed usingrnNickel conductive paint. Meanwhile, the CP antenna is designed on a thin RogersrnRO4003C substrate and located on top of the AMC plane at a 20 mm distance. Therncombined structure operates at 2.4 GHz with satisfactory reflection and radiation performance.rnIt is sized at 99 mm × 99 mm × 21.485 mm3, with 450 MHz (18%) ofrn10 dB impedance bandwidth and 250 MHz (10%) of 3 dB axial ratio bandwidth.rnThe AMC plane also improved its gain from 3.05 dBi up to 5.35 dBi.