1

Wide Bandwidth Dual Port, Dual Sense Circular

Polarization Antenna for Satellite Applications
G. S. Mauro1,2 , G. Torrisi1 , P. Di Mariano3 , C. Squadrito3 , S. Emanuele3 , L. Di Donato4 , and G. Sorbello4

1 Istituto
Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare - Laboratori Nazionali del Sud, Via S. Sofia 62, 95123 Catania, Italy.
2 Dipartimento di Ingegneria dell’Informazione, delle Infrastrutture e dell’Energia Sostenibile,
Università degli Studi Mediterranea di Reggio Calabria, Salita Melissari, 89124 Reggio Calabria, Italy.
3 Sicilsat Communications s.r.l, Via della Resistenza 44, 95030 Pedara, Italy.
4 Dipartimento di Ingegneria Elettrica, Elettronica e Informatica,

Università degli Studi di Catania, Viale Andrea Doria 6, 95125 Catania, Italy.
mauro@lns.infn.it

Abstract—This paper presents a large bandwidth dual-sense-
of circular polarization (CP) patch antenna working at X-band.
The radiating element is suspended in air by three pins that
are sequentially-fed to provide robust CP. The antenna feed
network can switch from left-handed CP (LHCP) to right-handed
CP (RHCP) on the base on the connected port and, being
compact, can be placed at the back of the antenna ground plane.
Furthermore, to minimize the cross-polarization at low elevation
angles, the so called “monopole fence”, positioned around the
metallic patch element, was proposed and designed to improve
cross-polarization and to reduce the on axis gain for a wide
beam-width.
Index Terms—Hybrid feed antenna, Circular polarization,
Satellite applications.
I. I NTRODUCTION AND MOTIVATION
Circular polarization (CP) antennas are widely used in
telecommunication, RFID, satellite and radar systems since
they offer many advantages. In particular, satellite commu-
nication systems have an important role in delivering many
essential services, such as remote telephone connection, inter-
net access, etc. At relatively low frequencies (below 2 GHz),
satellite links require circular polarization in order to have
immunity to Faraday rotation. Other advantages of circular
polarization, shared also with hand held and mobile devices,
are the fact that communication can be achieved without a
particular alignment (the receiving antenna does not need to
be oriented for a good polarization match). Moreover the
fading is naturally reduced since reflection switch the sense
of polarization and, in principle, the channel capacity can be
duplicated by polarization multiplexing. As a positive side
effect, we also mention the fact that usually a larger impedance
bandwidth can be achieved with respect to linear polarization
when CP is used.
It is well known that large bandwidth dual sense CP
antennas can be obtained from two linear orthogonal polar-
ization with an appropriate feed network to radiate in-phase
quadrature orthogonal polarization [1], [2]. However, such
configurations requires high isolation between the two linear
orthogonal polarization [3], as well as, the use of quadrature
hybrid feed network complicates the antenna design, size
and fabrication. Often, to simplify the antennas design and
compactness, CP is generated with perturbation technologies,
but such way entails very limited bandwidths [4], [5].
In this paper we present a compact, dual sense circular
polarization antenna, operating at X-band with low axial ratio
and high gain over a wide operational bandwidth and wide
beam-width that can be used in remote sensing applications
and in particular with LEO (Low Earth Orbit) satellites .
The proposed solution, as compared to single feed de-
generate mode design, provides both right- and left- circular
polarization and it is smarter than design based on 90-degree
hybrid couplers, since the three pin feeding structure is more
robust when compared with configuration based on two-
linear orthogonal polarization. Moreover the feed network is
somehow simpler and more compact than solutions employing
quadrature hybrids [2].
Specifically, the proposed antenna operates in the 8 −
8.5 GHz band and is able to achieve both a large CP and
impedance bandwidth. In particular, a 1.5-dB axial-ratio (AR)
bandwidth of 13.4% and 19-dB return-loss (RL) bandwidth
of 8.36% can be attained. The feed network also provides
a good isolation between the LHCP and RHCP feeding ports
since an isolation larger than 10 dB over the entire operational
bandwidth is achieved.
Full wave simulations of the scattering parameters, axial
ratio (AR) and antenna gain have been carried out using
industrial standard Finite Element Method (FEM) and Finite
Difference Time Domain (FDTD) simulators and the results
well agree between each other. Small size, low cost, very good
performances and robustness against parameter variations are
the strength points of the proposed structure.
II. A NTENNA LAYOUT
The proposed antenna layout, shown in Fig. 1, is composed
of a suspended circular metallic patch without substrate and
a 0.76 mm thick Rogers TMM4 substrate (r = 4.5) used to
realize the feed network. The microstrip feed network share
the ground plane with the patch. The five-port feed network
has two port providing RHCP and LHCP inputs and other

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three “internal” port connected to the tree feed pins that also
holds the patch element: these pins are sequentially fed at 0,
120 and 240-degrees in order to obtain CP.
On the ground plane and around the radiating element, eight
metallic passive monopoles are placed in order to decrease the
cross-polarization value at low elevation angles (i.e., large θ
values) and also to achieve a wide beam-width. The contribu-
tion of these monopoles to the radiation pattern is negligible
on axis; but they provide a desirable theta-polarized field
component at low elevation angle with a beneficial effect to
the CP that, at boresight direction (i.e., low elevation angles),
is deteriorated for the drop of the theta- component in the field
radiated by the stand alone patch antenna.
The optimized structure geometric parameters are listed in
Table I.

TABLE I
A NTENNA GEOMETRICAL PARAMETERS .

Name Value (mm) Description

rpatch 8.65 Circular patch radius
tpatch 0.25 Patch thickness
hsub 0.76 Substrate height (a)
rsub 15.5 Substrate and ground radius
hpin 1.49 Feed pin height in air
lpin = hpin + hsub 2.26 Feed pin total height
rpin 0.35 Pin radius
rfence 11 Monopole fence radius
hmnp 5.5 Monopoles height
rmnp 0.75 Monopoles radius

The antenna is fed through a three pin feeding network,

composed of five strips with characteristic impedance Zc1 ,
Zc2 , Zc3 , Zc4 and Zc5 with Zc5 = 50 Ω being the in-
put microstrip line (feeding-port). If we fed through the (b)
LHCP (or RHCP) port, the three pins are sequentially fed at Fig. 1. (a) Top view of the proposed antenna. (b) Side view of the proposed
0, 120, 240 deg (or 0, −120, −240 deg) in the way to obtain the antenna. Suspended patch and monopole fence are visible.
desired CP. The optimal values of the microstrips characteristic
impedances, and the related electrical lengths, have been set
ports.
empirically through numerical analysis, in such a way to
The patch is suspended by the three feeding pins at level
achieve the desired phase shift and power splitting among
hpin above the ground plane. The large air-substrate thickness
the three pins. The circuital model of such a feeding network
(i.e., the distance, hpin , between the patch and the ground
can be analyzed following the theory of 90-hybrids directional
plane) allow a large operational bandwidth. However the long
couplers, but it is out of the scope of this paper, which is
pins inductively load the feed network. This in general needs
concerned only with the antenna radiating element.
compensation [5], here this role is played by the feed network
As will be shown in the following section by full wave
that also compensate for the inductive load.
simulations, the antenna provides both LHCP and RHCP with
The radiating patch is connected to the feed network by
symmetrical performances. This result is expected and can
three “long” pins (trough the three antenna internal ports) and
be predicted by inspection of the layout invoking general
can be modeled taking into account mutual coupling and the
consideration on symmetry: since the structure can be mirrored
concept of active impedance parameters [9] by using three
in itself, as a general rule, many electromagnetic property can
identical equivalent inductive loads for the feed network.
be predicted/enforced by ensuring reflection symmetry and/or
transnational invariance including roto-translational symmetry
III. N UMERICAL RESULTS
[6]. The five-port feed network was tuned to provide three
equal-amplitude sequentially-fed output signals that are con- A. Performance of the optimized design
nected to the three pins of the same micro-strip disk radiator. Antenna was studied and validated by extensive simulations
As compared to standard sequential-feeding approach [7]–[9] using Ansys HFSS full wave simulator.
based on a fixed splitter, that can achieve a fixed left o right In Fig. 2 the S-parameters of the optimized structure can be
CP, the proposed five-port network can provides both left- and observed, in the 8 − 8.5-GHz band of interest the scattering
right-polarization as well as a good isolation between the two parameters, |S11 | and |S22 |, are below −20 dB. As predicted,

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invoking symmetry considerations S11 ≈ S22 , while the minor 2

differences can be ascribed to the fact that symmetry is not

strictly enforced by an appropriate directive in the simulation
but it is broken by the random mesh. From the same Fig. 2 it 1.5
is apparent that the isolation between the two ports, |S21 | is

Axial Ratio (dB)

adequate being below −10 dB in the band of interest.
The predicted axial ratio (AR) is shown in Fig. 3; in the of
1
8 − 8.5-GHz band of interest the antenna shows AR values
below 1 dB. The 3-dB-AR percent bandwidth is as large
as 23.4%. The two curves shown in Fig. 3 are obtained
0.5
connecting the the LHCP or the RHCP port in sequence while
the other port is properly terminated. The curves are similar
as expected from symmetry considerations.
CP gain plots are visible in Fig. 4; again, the LHCP and 0
7.8 8 8.2 8.4 8.6 8.8 9
RHCP ports are feed in turn, and the results are almost Frequency (GHz)
symmetric as expected by reflection symmetry considerations.
The symmetry is not perfect: a slight difference between Fig. 3. Axial ratio for the considered structure. Desired bandwidth of [8; 8.5]
the two co (cross)-polarization components is visible at θ = GHz presents axial ratio values below 1 dB.
±70 deg (values of 0.3 dB LHCP vs 0.6 dB RHCP for the co-
10
polarization and values of -14.5 dB LHCP vs -15 dB RHCP
for the cross-polarization); this, as already mentioned, is due 5
to the fact that the random mesh is not enforced symmetric and 0
it slightly breaks the exact symmetry. From the plots it can be
-5
seen that, due to the “monopole fence”, cross-polarization is
Gain CP (dB)

good also at low elevation angles (±70 deg). The beneficial -10

effect of the “monopole fence” will be discussed in the -15

following section.
-20
Since no substrate is used for the patch suspended in air
and the feed network is printed on a low loss Rogers TMM4 -25

substrate (tan δ = 0.002) the radiation efficiency is quite good -30

LHCP co-polar
RHCP cross-polar
and has been evaluated as η = 99%. -35 LHCP cross-polar
RHCP co-polar
-40
B. Parametric study -90 -70 -50 -30 -10 10 30 50 70 90
(deg)
A study on the effect of the “monopole fence” was carried
out through HFSS simulation. The study shows that, while Fig. 4. CP gain plots. Thanks to the “monopole fence’, cross-polarization is
antenna performances in terms of S-parameters remains ac- minimized at low elevation angles (θ = ±70 deg). LHCP/RHCP refer to the
port connected.
ceptable inside the band of interest, the axial ratio and the

0
cross-polarization at low elevation angles get worse if the
|S 11| monopole fence is not present.
|S 21| Fig. 5 shows the CP gain plots for a structure working
-5
|S 22| without the monopole fence vs the optimal design with 8
monopoles. Co-polar gains are marked with circles while
S-parameters (dB)

-10
square symbol refer to cross-polar gain. Filled symbol are used
for results with the monopole fence present; empty symbol are
-15 used for results without the monopole fence. It is apparent that
low elevation angles the monopole fence increases the copolar
-20 level and decreases the cross polar with a double positive effect
on cross polar discrimination (XPD).
-25 This is even more evident from Fig. 6 that shows, for the
two considered structures, the axial ratio plot for θ = 0 deg
-30
and for (θ = ±70 deg, φ = 0 deg). From the related figures, it
7.5 7.75 8 8.25 8.5 8.75 9 can be seen that the presence of the monopole fence keeps an
Frequency (GHz)
acceptable circular polarization (i.e., AR below 4 dB) inside
Fig. 2. Simulated S parameters for the antenna: in the band of interest of [8;
the band of interest, at low elevation angles, while the CP is
8.5] GHz, |S11 |, |S22 | are below −20 dB and the isolation between the two lost at the same angles if the monopole fence is removed (i.e.,
ports, |S21 |, is below −10 dB. AR > 7.5 dB at θ = 70 deg for f = 8.5 GHz).

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 4

10 Another parameter which has a notable impact on the

5
quality of the isolation between the two CP (the two ports)
is the feed pin length, or hpin . This is visible form Fig. 7:
0
for the optimal length hpin = 1.49 mm the minimum of the
-5 |S21 | curve is found at the center of the operating band (solid
line in light blue), but if the length is not set at the optimal
Gain CP (dB)

-10
one, the minimum of the isolation curve shifts out from the
-15
frequency band of interest. The AR and other parameters such
-20 as CP gain are almost not affected by hpin , the RHCP or LHCP
-25 gain slightly increases from 6.74 dB to 7.30 dB when hpin is
-30
co-polar monop. changed from 0.99 to 1.99 mm as predicted by the theory.
cross-polar monop.
-35 co-polar no monop.
cross-polar no monop. 0
-40
-90 -70 -50 -30 -10 10 30 50 70 90 -5
(deg)
-10
Fig. 5. CP gain for the two considered structures. A clear degradation of

S-parameters (dB)
cross-polarization component at θ = ±70 deg is visible for the structure -15
witout monopole fence at f = 8.25 GHz.
-20
10
= -70° -25
9 = 0°
= 70°
8 -30
h pin = 0.99 mm
7 h pin = 1.49 mm
-35
Axial Ratio (dB)

h pin = 1.99 mm
6
-40
5 7.5 7.75 8 8.25 8.5 8.75 9
Frequency (GHz)
4
Fig. 7. |S21 | curve for hpin = 0.99, 1.49, 1.99 mm. It can be seen that
3
there is an optimal length that maximize the isolation between the two CP
2 ports.

0
7.5 8 8.5 9 C. Design validation
Frequency (GHz) The design was tuned and the layout released for prototype
(a) realization. The antenna performances have been validated by
10 comparison with two industrial standard simulators the HFSS
= -70° based on FEM method and a time domain simulation through
9 = 0°
= 70° CST Studio Suite software.
8
As general comment, CAD simulations carried out with
7 Ansoft HFSS and CST Microwave are considered like an
Axial Ratio (dB)

6
experimental verification. Result as well as simulation time
can be influenced by several factor and settings (such as
5
mesh size) but when simulation parameters are appropriately
4 selected experimental data and simulations give comparable
3 results.
From Fig. 8 and Fig. 9 it can be seen that both simulators
2
present very good agreement between each other in terms of
1 axial ratio, while the agreement is slightly worse in the case
0 of S-parameters: this could be due to the fact that the two
7.5 8 8.5 9 simulators uses different meshing elements (tethraedrons in
Frequency (GHz)
HFSS, hexaedrons in CST) when resolving the model. Finer
(b) mesh would result in closer agreement also between scattering
Fig. 6. (a) Axial ratio plots for θ = 0, ±70 deg for the structure working parameters predicted with the two methods (as well as in a
with the monopole fence. (b) Axial ratio plots for θ = 0, ±70 deg for the longer simulation time).
structure working without the monopole fence.

314
 5

0 CP antenna are often required for telemetry tracking and

|S 11| HFSS command (TT&C) applications. A good off axis CP is required
|S 11| CST also is in the design of the feed element for parabolic antennas.
-5
|S 21| HFSS
On going activities are devoted to the realization of the
|S 21| CST
antenna prototype to test it in anechoic chamber.
S-parameters (dB)

-10

R EFERENCES
-15
[1] F. Ferrero, C. Luxey, G. Jacquemod, and R. Staraj, “Dual-band circularly
polarized microstrip antenna for satellite applications,” IEEE Antennas
-20 and Wireless Propagation Letters, vol. 4, pp. 13–15, 2005.
[2] E. Choi, J. W. Lee, T. Lee, and W. Lee, “Dual-band circularly polarized
microstrip antenna for satellite applications,” IEEE Antennas and Wireless
-25 Propagation Letters, vol. 13, pp. 1689–1692, 2014.
[3] M. Barba, “A high-isolation, wideband and dual-linear polarization patch
antenna,” IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, vol. 56, no. 5,
-30 pp. 1472–1476, 2008.
7.5 7.75 8 8.25 8.5 8.75 9
[4] O. Leonardi, M. Pavone, T. Cadili, G. Sorbello, and T. Isernia, “Mono-
Frequency (GHz)
lithic patch antenna for dedicated short-range communications,” Electron-
ics Letters, vol. 49, pp. 85–86, 2013.
Fig. 8. Simulated S parameters for the antenna, HFSS vs CST. [5] C. Di Carlo, L. Di Donato, G. S. Mauro, R. La Rosa, P. Livreri, and
G. Sorbello, “A circularly polarized wideband high gain patch antenna
2
for wireless power transfer,” Microwave and Optical Technology Letters,
HFSS
vol. 60, pp. 620–625, 2018.
CST
[6] M. Aloisio and G. Sorbello, “One-third-of-pitch reduction technique for
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1.5 2006.
[7] P. Hall, J. Dahele, and J. James, “Design principles of sequentially
Axial Ratio (dB)

fed, wide bandwidth, circularly polarised microstrip antennas,” in IEE

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1 IET, 1989, pp. 381–389.
[8] M. Fartookzadeh and S. M. Armaki, “Wide-beam spiral antenna with
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[9] S. Liao and Q. Xue, “Compact UHF three-element sequential rotation
0.5
array antenna for satcom applications,” IEEE Transactions on Antennas
and Propagation, vol. 65, no. 5, pp. 2328–2338, 2017.

0
7.8 8 8.2 8.4 8.6 8.8 9
Frequency (GHz)

Fig. 9. Simulated axial ratio, HFSS vs CST. Both simulators presents very
good agreement in the band of interest of [8; 8.5] GHz.

IV. C ONCLUSIONS
A circularly polarized three pin patch antenna was presented
with broad bandwidth and wide beamwidth radiation charac-
teristics.
To drive the circular patch radiator, a five-port feed network
achieving three-way power splitting and direct or reverse
120 degrees phase shifting (depending on the port connected)
has been proposed and designed to achieve the desired phase
shift and power splitting.
A 1.5-dB-AR bandwidth of 13.4% was achieved; when con-
sidering the more common 3-dB-AR bandwidth requirement,
the antenna reaches a 23.4% frequency bandwidth and this
latter results well compare against triple-fed and quadrature-
fed CP antennas from literature.
The strength points of the proposed antenna are the small
size, low cost, high efficiency, wide bandwidth and wide-angle
CP, as well as robustness against fabrication tolerances. More-
over, the antenna can be easily re-scaled to operate in other
frequency band; since the radiating element is suspended in air
the re-scaling is very simple. In the S-band wide beamwidth

315