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

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).