Use of Mantle Cloaks to Increase Reliability of Satellite-to-Ground Communication Link

Abstract

In this paper, we show how mantle cloaking can be effectively used in satellite scenarios to reduce the deteriorating effects of the deployable equipment on the link budget between a miniaturized satellite and its ground station. The proposed idea is applied to a nanosatellite scenario and is validated through a simple analytical analysis of its communication link with the ground. The effectiveness of the designed cloaking metasurfaces is evaluated through a proper combination of numerical strategies taking into account the electrically large domain of the problem and the electrically small features of the metasurfaces. This innovative solution can be used to enhance the performances of existing satellite communication systems or to design new extremely compact nanosatellite platforms equipped with multifunctional antennas and sensors.