Multibeam Antenna for Ka-Band CubeSat Connectivity Using 3-D Printed Lens and Antenna Array
K. Trzebiatowski, Weronika Kalista, Mateusz Rzymowski, Łukasz Kulas, Krzysztof Nyka
Abstract
In this letter, the design of a passive multibeam lens antenna is proposed for the CubeSat space communication system as an alternative application of a 2-D microstrip antenna array that has originally been designed for a 39-GHz 5G multi-user, multiple-input, multiple-output (MU-MIMO) system. The half-ellipsoid lens is 3-D printed using stereolithography technology. The antenna prototype is capable of selecting the main beam between 16 different directions with a gain ranging from 14 to 16 dBi and a half-power beamwidth of 14 <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$^\circ$</tex-math></inline-formula> –18 <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$^\circ$</tex-math></inline-formula> . The measurements carried out in an anechoic chamber show good agreement with numerical simulations. The presented prototype shows that by employing 3-D printing technologies existing antennas can be easily and inexpensively converted to switched-beam or multibeam solutions.