High-Efficiency Compact CP Antenna for Ku-Band Operation

The demand for high-performance antennas that operate efficiently across multiple frequency bands has increased significantly due to advancements in satellite communications, radar systems, and other modern communication technologies. The Ku-band, with its frequencies ranging from 12 to 18 GHz, plays a pivotal role in satellite communications, but designing compact, efficient, and high-performance antennas for this band comes with several challenges. These challenges include maintaining good impedance matching, minimizing interference, ensuring low axial ratio for circular polarization, and achieving high gain in a compact form factor suitable for space-constrained environments. This paper presents a solution to these challenges in the form of a compact triple-band circularly polarized antenna that is designed to operate at 3.5 GHz, 9.5 GHz, and 16 GHz—key frequencies within the Ku-band. The proposed antenna design leverages advanced techniques, including chamfered corners, integrated slots, and defected ground structures, to achieve circular polarization with an axial ratio of ≤3 dB and impedance matching of S11 < -10 dB. These methods are employed to maximize the antenna's performance while maintaining a compact size, making it suitable for applications in satellite communication systems where space constraints are critical. Furthermore, the proposed antenna provides high gain and scalability, which are essential for modern communication systems that require reliable, efficient performance across multiple frequency bands.