Abstract
The Tianwen-1 of China is expected to land and explore on the planet Mars in May 2021, carrying a Mars Rover-mounted Subsurface Penetrating Radar (RoSPR) system. A VHF band ultra-wideband (UWB) monopole antenna integrated on the Mars Rover, and described in this paper, has been designed for the subsurface exploration of Mars tens of meters deep. Conventional antenna design methods usually prove difficult in taking into account several key parameters such as miniaturization, broadband characteristics and radiation efficiency. Moreover, there is almost no special research on the reliability of antennas. For this purpose, a miniaturized air-coupled monopole antenna integrated with the Mars Rover has been designed. The overall length of the antenna is 0.13 λ at the lowest operating frequency. In addition, the classical Wu–King profile is improved, which not only satisfies the operating bandwidth of the antenna, but also increases the gain by 3–4 dB. In the design, the innovative application of planar embedded resistance greatly enhances the reliability of the antenna and thereby ensures that the antenna can work on Mars for a long term. This is the first application of this antenna design method in the aerospace field. Because it is difficult to test the low-frequency antenna accurately, a 1:4 scale model of the antenna and Rover is fabricated to equivalently measure the radiation characteristics of the antenna. Furthermore, the performance and practicability of the antenna and radar system are verified on the glacier.
Highlights
China’s first Mars exploration mission, named Tianwen-1 (TW-1), was launched on23 July 2020 and is expected to land on the surface of Mars in May 2021 for scientific exploration [1]
TW-1 is equipped with a Mars Rover-mounted Subsurface Penetrating
The Rover-mounted Subsurface Penetrating Radar (RoSPR) antenna is exposed to the Martian environment for a long term, and it needs to be able to withstand the thermal and mechanical environment of the launch and working stages
Summary
China’s first Mars exploration mission, named Tianwen-1 (TW-1), was launched on23 July 2020 and is expected to land on the surface of Mars in May 2021 for scientific exploration [1]. Radar (RoSPR) system for detecting subsurface geological structures of Mars. The main scientific objective of RoSPR is to characterize the thickness and layered structure of Martian soil. In the deep exploration mode, the operation band of the radar is 30–90 MHz, and the detection depth ranges from 10 m to 100 m with a depth resolution of about 2.2 m. 1.35 m, which is only 0.13 λ of the lowest operating frequency, and only lightweight rod antennas can be installed on the Rover. Under this restriction, the relative bandwidth of the antenna reaches 100%, which brings challenges to the antenna design. The RoSPR antenna is exposed to the Martian environment for a long term, and it
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