Abstract
A high-temperature superconductor (HTS) microstrip antenna array with right-hand circular polarization is proposed for space communications. The proposed HTS antenna array can achieve high efficiency, which is able to reduce the antenna’s loss. The array consists of 16 antenna elements being fed by a T-network. A pair of symmetric meander slots is used in each antenna element to broaden the input matching bandwidth. A controllable cryostat is used as the refrigeration for HTS. The experiment shows that the gain of the proposed HTS antenna is 8.39 dB, whose 10 dB return loss bandwidth is 2.2% ranging from 5.75 GHz to 5.87 GHz. In comparison with a traditional conductor antenna array having the same configuration, the proposed array has an 8.1 dB improvement in the gain and a 69.2% enhancement in the radiation efficiency.
Highlights
Antenna is an important component for space communication, where some characteristics of the antennas are highly desired, including high gain, high efficiency, low profile, and low cost [1]
The microstrip antenna array having the advantages of high gain and low profile and the convenience of fabrication is considered as a good candidate [2, 3]
The use of the high-temperature superconductor (HTS) in the antenna can lead to the reduction of the loss of the matching circuit and feed network, which is proportional to the conductor loss [2, 3]
Summary
Antenna is an important component for space communication, where some characteristics of the antennas are highly desired, including high gain, high efficiency, low profile, and low cost [1]. The microstrip antenna array having the advantages of high gain and low profile and the convenience of fabrication is considered as a good candidate [2, 3]. Due to the conductor loss, the microstrip antenna suffers from relatively low efficiency, especially in antenna arrays with feed networks [3]. Different from the liquid nitrogen, a new commercial Stirling refrigerator has the ability to accurately control the temperature from 60 K to 300 K by computers, which is more suitable and affordable as the cryostat for the HTS antenna. Compared with a traditional conductor antenna with the same configuration, the HTS antenna array has high radiation efficiency. W2 W1 z xy Figure 1: The configuration of the HTS antenna array’s element
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