A Parallel Plate Slot Antenna Array Used in SAR Satellite

Abstract

A novel dual-band Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite represents a remote sensor that can be used in agriculture, earth-resource mapping, geology, Oceanography, environmental monitoring, and mineralogy. Because of all these applications, the demand on SAR sensor with low cost is rapidly increased. The ability of microwave power to penetrate land/earth surface differs from clouds, oceans, crops and etc. depending on its operating frequency band. In order to increase the penetrated depth, the wavelength should be increased. According to that, there are numerous applications of SAR sensors at different operating bands such as. L-band, C-band, S-band, X-band, Ka-band, Ku-band and millimeter wave band. The antenna array represents the key component of the SAR sensor. According to that, the parallel plate slot antenna array used in SAR satellite is proposed. The antenna panel consists of rectangular array of pair slots etched on a metallic (Aluminum for space application) parallel plate layer. An air dielectric substrate layer (Honeycomb Layer for space applications) is placed between the backward ground plane and the radiating slots. Dual waveguide feed is used in order to excite the slot pair with dual circular polarization. The inner size dimensions of the waveguide feeder are a = 40.386 mm and b = 20.193 mm. All materials used in the antenna array design for space application. The coupling between the waveguide and the parallel plate array can be achieved by digging a coupling slot between the waveguide feeder and the ground plane of the parallel plate with inclined slot shape. The position of the coupling slot is optimized in order to get maximum coupling between the waveguide feeder and the slot array. The antenna array is designed to operate from 5.2 GHz to 5.4 GHz (C-band application). Also, the complete antenna array is simulated using CST Studio suite. The simulated E-plane and H-plane radiation pattern is reported.