13th European Conference on Antennas and Propagation (EuCAP 2019)
On the Design of a Circularly Polarized Microstrip
Antenna Array for CubeSat in the Ka-Band
Giulia Buttazzoni, Francesca Pelusi, Roberto Vescovo
University of Trieste, Department of Engineering and Architecture
Via A. Valerio 10, 34127 Trieste, Italy
vescovo@units.it
Abstract—This paper describes the preliminary phases of the
design of a planar antenna array to be mounted on a face of
a CubeSat operating in the Ka-frequency band. In order to
compensate the high attenuation of the millimeter-waves, the
antenna is required to be circularly polarized, and the final
array is composed of subarrays of sequentially rotated square
microstrip patches with truncated corners. In particular, two
candidate geometries are presented for the subarray, which
improve a prototype previously realized at the University of
Trieste. Then, the performances of three possible configurations
for the final array are evaluated.
Index Terms—microstrip antenna array, CubeSat, millimeter-
wave, Ka-frequency band.
I. I NTRODUCTION
CubeSats are a particular class of small satellites. They
were introduced with educational and scientific purposes [1],
but thanks to the reduced production and launch costs, the
range of applications has extended rapidly, attracting military,
commercial and governative organizations. Nowadays, there
are CubeSat missions with many different tasks [2]. Due
to the enlarged mission requirements, the onboard systems,
including antenna systems, have became more sophisticated
[3]. Antennas for the earlier CubeSat missions were mainly
omnidirectional dipoles, working at the amateur frequencies.
But, in order to support the higher data rates required by
the new mission tasks, a shift to higher frequency bands
has been implemented. However, at higher frequencies the
signal attenuations are higher, so the development of high gain
Circularly Polarized (CP) antennas is mandatory. At present,
only few proposals for CubeSat antennas operating in the Ka-
frequency band are proposed in the literature [3]. Besides,
planar antennas are particularly suited to CubeSat applications,
since they do not require any mechanism for the deployment.
A great number of planar antennas have been designed for
such satellites, but none of them for the Ka-frequency band
[4].
In this paper, the planar array proposed in [5] is briefly
described in the next section, in particular highlighting the
necessary improvements. Then, in Section III two candidate
geometries are proposed for the subarray, which constitutes the
array element, and in Section IV three different geometries
are proposed for the final array. Section V summarizes the
main results and describes the future work to be performed
for finalizing the array design.
II. R EFERENCE A NTENNA A RRAY
In this section the main characteristics of the antenna pro-
posed in [5] are briefly summarized, in particular the geometry
and the radiation characteristics. The reference array was
designed adopting a technique well-established in the literature
[6]. Precisely, an array consisting of a number of subarrays
was designed, in which each subarray was composed by four
patches adopting the sequential rotation technique (each patch
was rotated by 90 degrees with respect to the previous one
and exhibited the same phase delay). This technique was
specifically developed to improve the array performance with
reference to the circular polarization, and was adopted due
to the great importance of the polarization purity in satellite
communications at millimeter waves. Moreover, each of the
four patches forming the subarray was designed as a square
patch with truncated corners, to warrant circular polarization.
Then, the final array geometry was obtained by filling a square
of side 85 mm, the available surface of a CubeSat face. A sub-
array prototype was manufactured, and the measured radiation
pattern cuts of this prototype revealed a good agreement with
the simulated results, so that the simulated performance of the
final array is expected to be accurate. The radiation pattern
of the final array was obtained in [5], when the phases of
the excitations are optimized with the alternating projection
approach. Precisely, in [7] uniform amplitude distribution was
obtained by setting an upper bound equal to unity to the ratio
between the maximum and the minimum excitation amplitude.
The performance of the array was good, but high sidelobes
occurred at ±50◦ . These sidelobes represent radiation to (or
reception from) undesired directions, and reduced the gain of
the array. However, they were not avoidable with the adopted
array geometry, being a consequence of the periodicity of
the array factor. In fact, the array was intended to operate
at the working frequency of 37 GHz (Ka-frequency band),
corresponding to the wavelength λ = 8.1 mm. The spacing
between adjacent elements (subarrays) was greater than the
wavelength (d = 1.9λ), thus the array factor exhibited grating
lobes. In the final array these grating lobes were lowered
by the element factor. However, they were still too high.
These considerations can be better appreciated in Fig. 1,
where the radiation pattern cuts of the reference array are
shown, along with the array factor. So, in the next section
the study performed to modify the geometry of the subarray
 13th European Conference on Antennas and Propagation (EuCAP 2019)
(a)
(b)
Fig. 1. Plot of the cuts at (a) φ = 0◦ and (b) φ = 90◦ . Radiation pattern of
the reference antenna (RHCP black solid line - LHCP black dashed line) and
the array factor of the reference array (green line), which exhibits the grating
lobes.
(a) (b)
Fig. 2. Candidate subarray configurations: (a) the sequentially rotated patches
are placed on the middle points of a square of edge 8.8 mm; (b): the
sequentially rotated patches are placed on the corners of a smaller square
of edge 7.2 mm.
in order to avoid these drawbacks is described. Here, it is to be
emphasized that the goal of the research here presented is not
that of improving the obtained gain. In fact, in [5] a detailed
link budget analysis showed that the obtained gain is sufficient
to guarantee the link reliability. Instead, the objective of the
present work is that of designing a structure, which allows to
avoid the occurrence of the highest sidelobes.
III. T WO C ANDIDATE G EOMETRIES FOR THE S UBARRAY
In order to improve the performance of the earlier antenna
array, first of all the subarray geometry was redesigned.
Precisely, a better symmetry of the structure was searched
for, which also allowed a dimension reduction. Fig. 2 shows
two candidate geometries, which were selected after a careful
optimization procedure, carried out with the internal optimizer
of the electromagnetic software CST Microwave studio. Both
the structures were symmetrical. The subarray geometry in
Fig. 2(a) has the sequentially rotated patches placed on the
middle points of a square of edge 8.8 mm. The subarray
geometry in Fig. 2(b) has the sequentially rotated patches
Fig. 3. First structure with a regular lattice as in [5] and using the subarray
of Fig. 2(b).
placed on the corners of a smaller square of edge 7.2 mm.
The radiation patterns of these structures were similar, and
similar to those of the subarray developed in [5], thus they
are not reported here. The gain was 11.53 dBi and 11.33 dBi,
respectively. In both cases, the axial ratio was lower than 5 dB
in the main beam region and the RHCP/LHCP isolation was
greater than 15 dB. The most important results are expected
from the final array. In fact, the symmetry and the reduced
size allow to arrange the elements in the available surface
with different configurations.
IV. T HREE C ANDIDATE G EOMETRIES FOR THE A RRAY
In this section three different configurations are analyzed
for the final array.
A. First Structure
Firstly, a regular lattice was considered as in [5], but using
the subarray of Fig 2(b). Thanks to the reduced size, more
elements could be arranged on the available surface of side
85 mm. In fact the final array consisted of 9 × 9 subarrays,
as shown in Fig. 3. The radiation pattern cuts are shown in
Fig. 4. It can be seen that the higher sidelobes caused by the
periodicity of the lattice still appear, but at different directions.
In fact, a lower inter-element distance can be achieved (d =
1.2λ), which however is still higher than a wavelength.
B. Second Structure
The second structure uses the subarray of Fig. 2(a). The
elements are equally displaced on a triangular lattice, in such a
way as to keep constant the distance between single elements,
as depicted in Fig. 5. The maximum number of subarrays that
can be placed on the available surface was 85. The radiation
pattern cuts are shown in Fig. 6.
 13th European Conference on Antennas and Propagation (EuCAP 2019)
(a)
(b)
Fig. 4. Plot of the cuts at (a) φ = 0◦ and (b) φ = 90◦ . Blue lines: radiation
pattern of the first antenna array (geometry of Fig. 3). Black lines: radiation
pattern of the reference array of [5]. Solid lines: RHCP. Dashed lines: LHCP.
Fig. 5. Second structure consisting of 85 subarrays of Fig. 2(a).
C. Third Structure
In the last considered structure the subarrays are displaced in
alternate rows as is depicted in Fig. 7. The maximum number
of subarrays that can be placed on the available surface was
77. The radiation pattern cuts are shown in Fig. 8.
Table I summarizes the main characteristics of the three
considered geometries in terms of pattern gain, maximum
sidelobe level (SLL) and RHCP/LHCP isolation in the main
beam on the principal pattern cuts (φ = 0◦ and φ = 90◦ ). The
beamwidths revealed slightly larger than that of the reference
antenna being 4.8◦ for the three structures (and 4.5◦ for the
antenna of [5]).
(a)
(b)
Fig. 6. Plot of the cuts at (a) φ = 0◦ and (b) φ = 90◦ . Red lines: radiation
pattern of the second antenna array (geometry of Fig. 5). Black lines: radiation
pattern of the reference array of [5]. Solid lines: RHCP. Dashed lines: LHCP.
Fig. 7. Third structure consisting of 77 subarrays of Fig. 2(b).
V. C ONCLUSION AND F UTURE W ORK
This paper shows the possibility of improving the perfor-
mance of a recently developed array for CubeSat communi-
cations in the Ka-frequency band. The basic idea of [5] was
kept, but the design of the subarray element was reconsidered,
yielding to two candidate solutions. Then, the two solutions
were used in three different configurations for the final array
occupying a face of a CubeSat. The performances of the
three candidate solutions were mutually compared in Tab. I,
where also the performance of the reference array in [5] was
considered.
An analysis of the reported values shows that the objective
of reducing the maximum sidelobe level was achieved for all
the considered geometries, while maintaining acceptable val-
ues for the gain and for the RHCP/LHCP isolation. However,
 13th European Conference on Antennas and Propagation (EuCAP 2019)

[3] S. Gao, Y. Rahmat-Samii, R. E. Hodges, and X.-X. Yang, “Advanced

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[6] J. Huang, “A technique for an array to generate circular polarization
(a) with linearly polarized elements,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 34,
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[7] G. Buttazzoni and R. Vescovo, “Synthesis of co-polar and cross-polar
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[8] G. Buttazzoni and R. Vescovo, “Density Tapering of Linear Arrays
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pp. 2115–2116.
(b)

Fig. 8. Plot of the cuts at (a) φ = 0◦ and (b) φ = 90◦ . Blue lines: radiation
pattern of the third antenna array (geometry of Fig. 5). Black lines: radiation
pattern of the reference array of [5]. Solid lines: RHCP. Dashed lines: LHCP.

TABLE I
R ADIATION PERFORMANCE OF THE REFERENCE ARRAY AND OF THE
THREE CONSIDERED STRUCTURES .

Gain -SLLmax RHCP/LHCP

φ-cut (dBi) (dB) (dB)
Array of [5] 0◦ /90◦ 29.5/29.5 11.8/11.8 17/17
0◦ /90◦ 30.0/30.0 13.4/13.2 17/17
Array 1
45◦ /135◦ 30.0/30.0 23.2/13.2 16/16
0◦ /90◦ 29.9/29.9 13.6/13.4 24/26
Array 2
45◦ /135◦ 29.9/29.9 22.9/14.0 26/26
0◦ /90◦ 28.5/28.5 13.7/13.7 17/17
Array 3
45◦ /135◦ 28.5/28.5 23.2/23.2 16/16

this evaluation did not take into account the mutual coupling
effects between adjacent elements. Furthermore, the feeding
network has not been designed yet. So, it is worth noting
that the present paper describes a preliminary investigation.
Further analyses shall be performed, in particular regarding the
mutual coupling effects, which affect the axial ratio. Moreover,
once the most appropriate geometry will be selected, the
feeding network will be designed. Eventually a little control on
the radiation pattern will be carried out with some synthesis
methods, as that presented in [7]. Moreover, the possibility
of optimizing the positions of the subarrays on the available
surface in order to avoid regular lattices may be explored by
the use of the recently proposed Gaussian approach [8], which
was proven efficient also for rectangular array geometries [9].

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