Multi-Beam Satellite Seeking and Acquisition Method for Satcom-on-the-Move Array Antenna on a High Maneuverability Carrier

Abstract

When the carrier of the Satcom-on-the-Move (SOTM) antenna is in a high maneuvering state of motion, the accuracy of the array antenna beam pointing towards the satellite may decrease, which may cause a decline in communication effectiveness for SOTM or even cause the antenna to deviate from the target satellite and lead to communication interruption. This paper proposes a multi-beam searching and capturing method for SOTM array antennas, which divides the array antenna into multiple parts to form multiple independent and controllable sub-beams. When the SOTM carrier is in a high maneuvering state of motion, multiple sub-beams are obtained by dividing the array antenna, thus obtaining multiple points in the radiation pattern. We designed an optimal pointing analyzer, which calculates the SOTM array antenna beam direction based on whether the SOTM antenna is pointing towards the satellite and utilizes different approaches for processing. Experimental verification was conducted for the proposed scheme. The experimental results show that if the antenna beam does not lose the satellite, the proposed scheme can obtain better communication quality compared to conventional schemes. If the SOTM antenna beam loses the satellite and causes communication interruption, the proposed scheme in this paper can capture the satellite faster than conventional schemes. The experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.