Low cost phased array antenna for land-mobile satcom applications

Phased array antennas for use with land-mobile satcom services have been under development for several years. Owing to the relatively modest specification required of these antennas, it should be possible to produce them at an affordable price. A number of techniques aimed at minimising the cost of such arrays without significantly sacrificing performance are considered. A prototype 18-element array embodying these techniques is described, with theoretical predictions and experimental results to substantiate array performance.