A Polarisation-Agile Phased-Array Antenna for Satellite and beyond-5G Communications

In this paper a 8x8 stacked patch array is presented. The antenna elements are dual linearly polarised. By feeding the correct excitation for each antenna port, the array is capable of polarisation reconfigurability. The array is realised on a triangular lattice to simplify the system integration and packaging. An operating frequency range of 37 GHz to 42 GHz is achieved, which corresponds to a 13% fractional bandwidth at 39.5 GHz. The array is able to scan from -60° to +60° on all ϕ-planes while maintaining a scan loss below cos (θ)1.3. Moreover, the total active reflection coefficient is below -10 dB for the frequency range. The results show that the array operates on dual linear-polarisation mode or single circular-polarisation. For the circular polarisation the axial ratio is maintained below 2.7 dB for all the analysed frequency points and scan angles