Fully Integrated Solar Panel Slot Antennas for Small Satellites

This paper presents two prototypes of integrated solar panel antennas that can potentially replace the current deployed wire type antennas used in small satellites. The antenna design is based on cavity backed slot antennas that do not require additional satellite surface area to mount the antenna or any cost for deployment. Because the antenna design is independent from solar cells, one can choose any after-market solar cells without custom fabrication. The first prototype is a circularly polarized slot antenna that is integrated on top of a printed circuit board (PCB). The PCB is a common solar panel material in small satellite industry, and the solar cells are then inter-connected on the top most layer of the PCB. The second prototype is a linearly polarized two- element array. Both the antenna and solar cell functionalities were rigorously tested and we achieved outstanding performance from both antennas and solar cells