Received: 5 May 2018
DOI: 10.1002/mop.31518
RESEARCH ARTICLE
High-gain patch antenna for
cubesat-based automatic
dependent surveillance-
broadcast application
Wen-Chung Liu1 | Tzu-Yi Tang2
1
Department of Aeronautical Engineering, National Formosa University,
Huwei, Yunlin, Taiwan
2
Graduate Institute of Aviation and Electronic Technology, National
Formosa University, Huwei, Yunlin, Taiwan
Correspondence
Wen-Chung Liu, Department of Aeronautical Engineering, National
Formosa, University, Huwei, Yunlin 632, Taiwan.
Email: wencliu@nfu.edu.tw
Funding information
National Space Organization, Taiwan, Grant/Award Number: NSPO-S-
106036
Abstract
A multilayer patch antenna with high gain when operat-
ing in the automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast
(ADS-B) band is designed for cubesat application. The
antenna comprising a slotted-patch radiator, a defected
ground, and dual reflectors has a compact size of
80 × 80 × 8.76 mm3 for suitably placing into a cubesat.
By properly embedding slots into the patch elements of
the antenna, directional radiation pattern with gain
of 6.98 dBi at 1.090 GHz and an impedance bandwidth
of 17 MHz (1.087-1.104 GHz) can be achieved for the
ADS-B signal receiving. Validation is done by fabrication
and measurement of the antenna prototype and shows
good agreement between simulation and measurement.
KEYWORDS
ADS-B, cubesat, directional antenna, slot antenna, stacked patch
1 | INTRODUCTION
Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast (ADS-B) is an
important cooperative system by means of automatically and
Microw Opt Technol Lett. 2019;61:187–190. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/mop
periodically broadcasting aircraft onboard flight information
such as identity number, position, speed and direction during
all phases of flight to avoid collision.1 The ADS-B system is
a brilliant application and has become the major aviation sur-
veillance technique for support of the air traffic control
(ATC) services. Currently, the ADS-B system provides
flight information (answers) through the signal operating at
low L-band frequency of 1.090 GHz. However, for a terres-
trial based ADS-B system, its ability is limited to be regional
and thus not effective to monitor the global air traffic due to
the obstructing terrain of site altitude and distance. A poten-
tial solution for this limitation is to link the ADS-B signal
via satellite,2 especially via a small type of satellites such as
the cube satellite (cubesat) for that it is cheaper and with
lower complexity than a conventional one on space mission
and implement. The flight information world widely
detected by the cubesat-based ADS-B system can be down-
linked via VHF/UHF communication system to the ground
station and therefore available to ATC service.3
So far, lots of antennas including wire, patch and micro-
strip prototypes have been proposed for deployment on a cube-
sat with different frequencies in realizing various functions.4–9
The functions include supports of the TTC (telemetry, track-
ing, and command) operation, data communication, global
positioning system (GPS) and global navigation satellite sys-
tem (GNSS). However, among these presented antennas, it is
hard to find one suitably deployed on a cubesat for ADS-B
operation. It may be attributed to that design of a cubesat-
based ADS-B antenna with high gain but having a compact
and low-profile structure seems a challenge.10
In this letter, the proposed antenna employs a stacked-
patch structure with insertion slots for size reduction and
parasitic elements for gain increasing. The antenna is
designed for cubesat-based ADS-B operation. Comparing to
most of the reported ADS-B antennas, the proposed design
has not only a relatively compact size but also with a low-
profile structure, thus suitable for integration with the cube-
sat. In addition, the proposed antenna has been examined to
have sufficient bandwidth and good gain over the operating
band for ADS-B receiver.
2 | ANTENNA DESIGN
The proposed design is based on the concept of slotting
patch for size reduction and loading reflector for gain
increasing. Figure 1 shows the geometry of the proposed
© 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. 187
188 LIU AND TANG

80 0
1 34 14
-5
4 14
26 80
1 -10
40 Ground
Radiator 14

S-11(dB)
40
-15
40

47
40 RT4003
feeder Air 1
Reflector 1 RT4003
47
z
Air 2
10
RT4003
6 y x x
Reflector 2
FIGURE 1 Geometry and dimensions of the proposed cubesat
antenna for ADS-B application (unit: mm) [Color figure can be
viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]
antenna and its dimensions numerically obtained by using
HFSS electromagnetic solver. The antenna is constructed by
three layers of Rogers RT4003 substrate (thickness 1.62 mm
and relative permittivity 3.55). Three square patches of each
with 80 × 80 mm2 are employed as the radiator and reflec-
tors. To increase effective current path and thus miniaturize
size of the antenna an I-shaped slot is inserted into the radiat-
ing patch. Meanwhile, addition of above slot on the radiating
patch is also found significantly increasing the antenna
directivity by several dBs. The ground is a defected structure
obtained from symmetrically inserting dual triangular slots
and dual slits into a square patch of 40 × 40 mm2 from its
corner and middle edges, respectively. It is found an effec-
tive way to lengthen effective current path and improve
matching condition by embedding these slits and triangular
slots into the ground patch, respectively. Thus, the above
skill furthermore moves the resonance toward a lower band
at 1.090 GHz as well as produces a wider impedance band-
width over this band. Two square slotted patches are used as
reflectors for increasing directivity of the radiation pattern.
The substrates are separated with air gaps of 1.1 (air 1) and
2.8 mm (air 2) to further enhance the bandwidth. In this case,
we found that insertion of square slot on the Reflector 1 and
addition of the second slotted reflector (Reflector 2) can
effectively improve the antenna gain from 2.79 to 7.06 dBi.
-20
-25
Simulated
-30 Measured
-35
1 1.05 1.1 1.15 1.2
Frequency (GHz)
FIGURE 3 Simulated and measured reflection coefficients for
proposed high-gain ADS-B antenna [Color figure can be viewed at
wileyonlinelibrary.com]
The radiating patch is fed by probe at location 18 mm from
the center in the x-direction. Finally, the antenna with a high
gain has overall dimension of only 80 × 80 × 8.76 mm3 or
about 0.29λ0 × 0.29λ0 × 0.03λ0 in electrical length at
1.090 GHz for suitable hosting into a cubesat.
3 | RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Based on the design dimension shown in Figure 1, a
prototype of the proposed antenna (as shown in Figure 2)
was fabricated and measured. Figure 3 shows the measured
frequency response of reflection coefficient for the proposed
design. For comparison, the simulated result is also included
in this figure. The simulation presents the proposed
antenna has best resonance of −21.8 dB at 1.097 GHz
together with a 10-dB impedance bandwidth of 18 MHz
(1.088-1.106 GHz), while for measurement, it shows a band-
width of 17 MHz (1.087-1.104 GHz) resonating at
1.093 GHz with good return loss of about −30 dB. Agree-
ment between simulation and measurement seems good
beyond a frequency deviation of ≤ 0.4% for the resonance
frequency due to the fabrication tolerances. The obtained

FIGURE 2 Prototype photograph of the proposed antenna (A) top view. (B) Bottom view. (C) Side view [Color figure can be viewed at
wileyonlinelibrary.com]
LIU AND TANG 189

8
7
6
5

Gain (diB)
4
3
2
Measured
1
Simulated
0
1.08 1.09 1.1 1.11
Frequency (GHz)

FIGURE 6 Simulated and measured peak gains for proposed

FIGURE 4 Simulated surface current distribution on the patches
(A) radiator. (B) Ground. (C) Reflector 1. (D) Reflector 2 [Color
figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]
bandwidth clearly meets the bandwidth requirement of
10 MHz for ADS-B signal receiving.
Furthermore, the excited surface current distributions,
obtained from the HFSS simulation, on the four patches (radi-
ator, ground, and two reflectors) for the proposed antenna at
frequency 1.090 GHz are presented in Figure 4. Clearly, a
large surface current distribution is observed along the slot
edge to show the significant effect of the inserted slots.
z efficiency at the higher frequency band.
90 (A) 90
high-gain ADS-B antenna [Color figure can be viewed at
wileyonlinelibrary.com]
Concerning the antenna radiation performance, Figure 5
presents the simulated and measured far-field radiation pat-
terns at frequency 1.090 GHz for the proposed ADS-B
antenna. From the simulated 3-D view of gain pattern, it
shows that a directional pattern and a gain as high as
7.06 dBi along to the boresight direction have been
achieved. On verifying the simulated radiation performance
of the proposed design, the experimental xz- and yz-plane
patterns have been done and also shown in Figure 5. These
patterns are based on the directivity and normalized by the
maximum value. Both the simulated and measured results
are consistent and show the antenna is really directional with
a −3 dB aperture (beamwidth) of about 85-90 respective to
the z-direction.
Figure 6 shows the measured and simulated results of
antenna peak gain. In measurement, a peak gain of 6.98 dBi
at 1.090 GHz has been obtained, which very approximates
the simulated value of 7.06 dBi. Meanwhile, the peak
antenna gains for other frequencies across the operating band
(1.087-1.104 GHz) have also been measured and show an
average value of 6.5 dBi with a maximum of 7.03 dBi at
1.091 GHz, while for simulation the average peak gain is
7.04 dBi with a maximum of 7.14 dBi at 1.093 GHz.
Clearly, significant gain deviation occurs at higher frequency
band. This may be caused from the measured lower radiation

135 -5 45 135 -5 45
-10 -10
-15 -15 4 | CONCLUSION
-20 -20
-20 -15 -10 -5 -20 -15 -10 -5
180 0 180 0
A miniaturized antenna with high gain suitable for hosting
into a cubesat in ADS-B operation has been designed. By
225 315
means of slotting the radiating patches, loading it with two
225 315
reflectors, and separating the substrates with air gap, size
270 Simulated 270
Measured reduction and directivity enhancement of a stacked-patch
(B) (C)
antenna can finally be achieved. Comparing to most pro-
FIGURE 5 Simulated and measured radiation patterns posed ADS-B antennas, the proposed antenna showing a
(a) simulated 3D view. (B) xz-plane. (C) yz-plane [Color figure can good impedance bandwidth of 17 MHz and a broadside pat-
be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com] tern with a high gain of 6.98 dBi at 1.090 GHz is more
190
novel to become a good candidate for ADS-B operation.
Especially, this design has a compact size and a planar pro-
file, which is extremely suitable for use in a cubesat.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This work was supported by the National Space Organiza-
tion, Taiwan, under Grant NSPO-S-106036. We are grateful
to the National Centre for High-performance Computing for
computer time and facilities on HFSS.
O R C ID
Wen-Chung Liu https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6316-928X
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How to cite this article: Liu W-C, Tang T-Y. High-
gain patch antenna for cubesat-based automatic
dependent surveillance-broadcast application. Microw
Opt Technol Lett. 2019;61:187–190. https://doi.org/
10.1002/mop.31518