A Novel Wideband, Wide-Angle Scanning, Polarization-Reconfigurable Phased Array Antenna for Ku-Band SATCOM Applications

A novel wideband, wide-angle scanning and polarization-reconfigurable phased array antenna is proposed for <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$K u$</tex>-band satellite communication (SATCOM) applications. The radiating element has a single layer, and demonstrates a wide <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$\mathbf{3 2. 4 \%}$</tex> impedance bandwidth that covers both the downlink (10.712.7 GHz) and uplink (<tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$14-14.5 \text{GHz}$</tex>) SATCOM bands. Furthermore, the radiating element also maintains a stable radiation performance over the entire bandwidth, with very low cross-polarization and the capability of radiating squint-free duallinear and dual-circular polarizations, owing to its symmetrically placed differential feeding scheme. The corresponding <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$8 \times 8$</tex> phased array was able to scan at least up to <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$\pm 60^{\circ}$</tex> at the downlink band and <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$\pm 47^{\circ}$</tex> at the uplink band, symmetrically across all the different polarizations with a strict <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$\leq \mathbf{3} \mathbf{d B}$</tex> limit on both scan loss and axial ratio (for circular polarizations) criteria.