Analysis of Grating Lobe Effects on GEO DSC Distributed Antennas

Traditional single-antenna systems have inherent limitations in terms of antenna gain, anti-interference capability, and flexibility. To overcome these challenges, satellite-mounted distributed antenna systems disperse multiple antennas at different positions on the satellite to improve the receptio...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inApplied sciences Vol. 13; no. 19; p. 10912
Main Authors Wang, Changxu, He, Yuanzhi, Qi, Chengwu
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Basel MDPI AG 01.10.2023
Subjects
Antennas
Antennas (Electronics)
Comparative analysis
distributed antennas
DSC
GEO
grating lobe effects
grating lobe suppression
Receivers & amplifiers
Satellite communications
Signal to noise ratio
Simulation
Simulation methods
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Summary:Traditional single-antenna systems have inherent limitations in terms of antenna gain, anti-interference capability, and flexibility. To overcome these challenges, satellite-mounted distributed antenna systems disperse multiple antennas at different positions on the satellite to improve the reception quality and signal-to-noise ratio of satellite signals, enhancing the performance of the satellite communication system without additional bandwidth or transmission power. However, the dispersed locations and long distances between antennas on the satellite result in less compact spacing compared to terrestrial distributed antennas, leading to the generation of a significant number of grating lobes. The distributed satellite cluster (DSC) approach revolutionizes the traditional mode of satellite utilization, enabling close collaboration among distributed loads. In this study, we analyzed the impact of grating lobes produced by DSC distributed antennas in geostationary Earth orbit (GEO) and simulated the grating lobe patterns of two 1 m circular aperture satellite antenna arrays in GEO. The simulation results revealed that the relative position change of the satellites affected the width and number of interference fringes in a certain ground area, while change in the carrier phase led to the translation of the interference fringes. To mitigate the grating lobes, we employed a sparse array technique. The simulation results demonstrated that the sparse array effectively suppressed the grating lobes but at the expense of a decrease in the sidelobe level and beamwidth.
ISSN:2076-3417
2076-3417
DOI:10.3390/app131910912