A simple satellite-tracking dual-band left-handed circularly polarized (LHCP) triangular-patch array antenna is developed to support the next generation of mobile satellite communications using Engineering Test Satellite W (ETS-W) that will be launched by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) in 2005. The targeted minimum gain of the antenna is set to 5 dBic at an elevation of 48° in Tokyo area for applications of about a hundred kbps data transfer. In this paper, first, a dual-proximity feed equilateral triangular patch array antenna was simulated by the Method of Moments (MoM). The antenna is composed by three triangular patches for each transmission and reception units of mobile satellite communications. The measurement of the fabricated antenna was performed to confirm the simulation results. The simulation and measurement results show that the characteristics of patch array antenna is almost satisfying the specification and targets except the isolation and axial ratio of reception. This antenna is proposed as a mobile ground station antenna system for outdoor experiments using ETS-W in Tokyo area in 2006 under the joint research between Chiba University and National Institute of Information and Communications Technology - NICT (former Communication Research Laboratory - CRL), Japan.
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