Pyramidal multi-band antennas for GPS/Galileo/MicroSat application

There is a constant increase of interest for multi-band antennas, mainly driven by the objective to reduce the number of onboard and ground antennas by integrating several applications on a single radiating element. In the framework of the Galileo satellite navigation system, the French Space Agency (CNES) proposed to study the possibility of combining GPS, Galileo and MicroSat telemetry (TM) applications on the same multi-band antenna. The GPS / Galileo bands used here include for example ARNS as well as high precision applications. This communication introduces a novel topology of trap-loaded multi-band antenna based on pyramidal structures. The experimental results confirm the good performances observed during the electromagnetic simulations. The multi-band behavior and the required circular polarization characteristic of the proposed pyramidal antenna are validated experimentally.