Towards phased array antenna operating in Ku-band for satellite communications

Satellite communication systems for mounting on vehicles are commonly based on phased array antennas with electronical beam steering. In this work we develop active metasurface-based receive-transmit antenna arrays for newly deployed satellite constellation system running in Ku-band. Both receive and transmit subarrays are based on patch-antenna elements driven in circular polarization using 90∘ hybrids. In both subarrays we optimized elements sizes and array period to have optimal ellipticity, gain, side lobe level. In electromagnetic simulations we achieved realized gain of 32.2 dBi for the Rx subarray and 33.4 dBi for the Tx subarray obtained in a broad scanning angle range from − 15∘ to + 45∘. [Display omitted] •A phased array antenna based on two metasurfaces for Ku-band satellite systems has been designed and simulated.•We obtained high realized gain of 32.2 dBi for the receive subarray and 33.4 dBi for the transmit subarray.•An acceptable of cross-polarization has been achieved for the receive and transmit subarrays.•The level of the side lobes of the structure does not increase −12.3 dBi whereas scanning capabilities are from −15° to +45°.