A Scalable Ka-band 1024-element Transmit Dual-Circularly-Polarized Planar Phased Array for SATCOM Application

• Published in: IEEE access Vol. 8; p. 1
• Main Authors: Luo, Xuan, Ouyang, Jun, Chen, Zhihui, Yan, Yi, Han, Lei, Wu, Zubing, Yu, Tao, Zheng, Kai
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Piscataway IEEE 01.01.2020; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Circuit boards; Circular polarization; CMOS; dual-circularly-polarized; Effective isotropic radiated power (EIRP); Extremely high frequencies; flat panel antenna; Ka-band; Mass production; Multilayers; phased array; Phased arrays; Printed circuits; SATCOM; Satellite communications
• ISSN: 2169-3536; 2169-3536
• DOI: 10.1109/ACCESS.2020.3019174

This paper presents a scalable 1024-element transmit dual-circularly-polarized phased array for Ka-band satellite communication (SATCOM) terminal applications. The transmit array based on the CMOS beamformer and a multilayer printed circuit board (PCB) can steer up to large scan angles (±600°) with a scan loss less than 4.5 dB. With the 8-channel transmit beamformer, the array can realize dual circular polarization and the axial ratio (AR) of the array is less than 3 dB in the scanning range of ±300° in both lefthand circular polarization (LHCP) and right-hand circular polarization (RHCP) mode. The effective isotropic radiated power (EIRP) of the array achieves 74 dBm from 29.5 GHz to 30 GHz. The design and measurement of the 1024-element transmit array have presented a feasible way for mass production of a low cost active phased array.