A Dual-Band Circularly Polarized Stacked Patch Antenna for Satellite Communication

In this paper, a stacked patch antenna (SPA) design for dual-band circularly polarized operation is demonstrated. By utilizing a stacked patch structure, the antenna realizes dual-band functionality. Due to the orthogonal coupled apertures and phase-shift power divider, the antenna exhibits dual-band RHCP performance with a 3-dB axial ratio in each operational band. Without requiring complex etched patterns on the patches, the antenna achieves impedance bandwidths of 28.9% (lower band) and 13.4% (upper band), along with axial ratio bandwidths of 21.1 % and 7.3%, respectively. The proposed antenna maintains a low profile <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$(0.07\lambda_0)$</tex> while delivering stable gain across the operational bandwidth, which has the potential to be applied to satellite communication.