An active,ultra‐wideband dual‐polarizedtightly coupled dipole subarray for satellite communication

Abstract

How to integrate the tightly coupled dipole array (TCDA) with tile-based power combination network (PCN) has never been discussed in literatures. However, it is a critical issue should be resolved for TCDA's compact design. This article investigates a crucial front-end component—8 × 8 dual-polarized tightly coupled dipole subarray (TCDSA)—for ultra-wideband satellite communication (SATCOM). A tile-based network architecture is proposed to realize a low-volume active PCN for the TCDSA. Then, a vertical interconnection module is proposed to totally eliminate coaxial cables between antenna elements and the PCN. A prototype of the TCDSA is developed. The PCN is elaborately integrated with the antenna elements in a compact space within a total thickness of 2.0 cm. The overall height of the prototype is 206.6 mm (2.07λH), where λH is the wavelength at the high-end operating frequency. The fabricated dual-polarized prototype demonstrates a decade bandwidth of 0.3–3.0 GHz with low cross-polarization levels (<−30.0 dB). Because of the compact structure and excellent performance, the developed TCDSA will find applications in future receiving systems for SATCOM.