Phased Array Antenna Analysis Workflow Applied to Gateways for LEO Satellite Communications

Irene Merino-Fernandez; Sunil L Khemchandani; Javier Del Pino; Jose Saiz-Perez

doi:10.3390/s22239406

Phased Array Antenna Analysis Workflow Applied to Gateways for LEO Satellite Communications

Sensors (Basel). 2022 Dec 2;22(23):9406. doi: 10.3390/s22239406.

Authors

Irene Merino-Fernandez¹, Sunil L Khemchandani¹, Javier Del Pino¹, Jose Saiz-Perez¹

Affiliation

¹ Institute for Applied Microelectronics, University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (ULPGC), Parque Cientifico Tecnologico, 35017 Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain.

Abstract

Nowadays, mega-constellations of Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites have become increasingly important to provide high-performance Internet access with global coverage. This paper provides an updated comparison of four of the largest LEO mega-constellations: Telesat, SpaceX, OneWeb and Amazon. It describes the gateway design workflow from the patch antenna to phased array analysis. Patch antennas are developed for both transmission and reception after a thorough examination of the four systems. The results of electromagnetic simulation using Advanced Design Software (ADS) Momentum are shown, including their radiation pattern. Finally, a model of the gateway phased array using SystemVue is obtained using hexagonal, circular, and square arrays. According to the required effective isotropic radiated power (EIRP) and gain, the antenna sizes for the four constellations are estimated. As an example, for SpaceX constellation, a reception antenna with 8910 radiating elements using a hexagonal distribution with a gain of 46.9 dB and a sensitivity of -113.1 dBm was obtained.

Keywords: Low Earth Orbit constellations; gateway; patch antenna; phased array; satellite communications.

MeSH terms

Computer Simulation
Earth, Planet*
Internet Access*
Motion
Workflow

Grants and funding

This work has been partially supported by Grant PID2021-127712OB-C21 funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and, by “ERDF a way of making Europe”, the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities (RTI2018-099189-B-C22) and by Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria by the PIFULPGC2020-2 ING-ARQ3 grant.