A circularly polarised MSAT antenna element with increased operational bandwidth

With recent developments in mobile satellite (MSAT) communications, there has been a lot of activity in the area of antennas which would be suitable for this particular application. In this paper, the strategy is described of how to design circular patch antenna array elements featuring circular polarization over a bandwidth greater than 10%. The novel array antenna element presented in this paper features low cost, low profile, and high isolation in an array configuration. It is also easy to manufacture. The element described is to form part of a 14-element vehicle mounted phased array antenna for L-band mobile satellite communications in Australia. Note that in this particular application, the antenna needs to cover the frequencies of 1.66 GHz for transmission and 1.54 GHz for reception.<>