Design of a PE44820 Digital Phase Shifter for a CubeSat Phased Array Antenna

In this paper a PE44820 digital phased shifter has been designed and fabricated for a 10-element phased array antenna for a CubeSat application using off the shelf components. Phased array antennas are important in the fields of telecommunications, radar, and satellite communication systems as they allow for electronic beam steering instead of mechanical beam steering. Mechanical steering requires additional equipment to overcome the inertia of the mechanical platform, which drives up cost and complexity of the steering system. This is especially difficult for large platforms. A phased array antenna is composed of multiple antenna elements that form a highly directional beam as a result of constructive and destructive interference caused by the inter-element spacing. By controlling the relative phase between the signal fed to the antenna elements, allows for control of the constructive and destructive interference of these signals, and therefore the radiation pattern formed by the phased array. The radiation pattern can thus be steered electronically in real-time which allows for faster beam steering. This also allows for highly directional beams which can be electronically steered without physically moving the antenna. This phased array technology allows for improved communication efficiency, reduced system size, and supports simultaneous multi-beam operations.