Hybrid perturbation scheme for wide beamwidth circularly polarized stacked patch microstrip antenna for satellite communication

Circularly polarized microstrip antennas are popular for satellite communications due to their circularly polarized orientation. They are used frequently in modern day satellite communication. In order to achieve wide angular coverage in satellite communication, a wide beamwidth is required from the antenna. Traditional single layer microstrip antenna inherently demonstrates low angular beamwidth of approximately 600 to 800and thereby lacks wide angular coverage when used for satellite communication. The objective of this thesis is to design a single-fed stacked microstrip antenna using different perturbation techniques in order to achieve a wide angular beamwidth. This thesis presents a new design for a circularly polarized antenna based on the hybrid perturbation scheme. First, a method of stacked patch-ring with negative perturbation was used to generate a significantly larger beamwidth of 1060. The axial ratio (AR) bandwidth obtained is also significantly larger compared to the case when square rings are used as parasitic and driven rings with a single feed. A simulated impedance bandwidth (S11< - 10 dB) of 16%, 3 dB AR bandwidth of 8% and a peak gain of 8.65 dBic are obtained from this design. Next, a new design of stacked hybrid antenna is presented, which uses hybrid perturbations to generate circular polarization radiation. An enhanced beamwidth of 1260 was obtained. The simulation results are confirmed by the measured results.