Inter-CubeSat communication with V-band “Bull´s eye” antenna

Author

Vourch, Clement J. ; Drysdale, Timothy D.

Author_Institution

Electron. & Nanoscale Eng. Div., Univ. of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK

fYear

2014

fDate

6-11 April 2014

Firstpage

3545

Lastpage

3549

Abstract

We present the study of a simple communication scenario between two CubeSats using a V-band “Bull´s eye” antenna that we designed for this purpose. The return loss of the antenna has a -10dB bandwidth of 0.7 GHz and a gain of 15.4dBi at 60 GHz. Moreover, the low-profile shape makes it easily integrable in a CubeSat chassis. The communication scenario study shows that, using 0.01W VubiQ modules and V-band “Bull´s eye” antennas, CubeSats can efficiently transmit data within a 500 MHz bandwidth and with a 10^-6 BER while being separated by up to 98m, under ideal conditions, or 50m under worst case operating conditions (5° pointing misalignment in E-and H-plane of the antenna, and 5° polarisation misalignment).

Keywords

satellite antennas; satellite communication; CubeSat chassis; V-band bull´s eye antenna; VubiQ modules; intercubesat communication; polarisation misalignment; Antenna measurements; Antenna radiation patterns; Bandwidth; Horn antennas; Receivers; CubeSat antenna; V-band antenna; bull´s eye; inter-satellite communication; low-profile antenna;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Antennas and Propagation (EuCAP), 2014 8th European Conference on

Conference_Location

The Hague

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/EuCAP.2014.6902595

Filename

6902595