IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 71, NO.
5, MAY 2023 4153
A Flat-Panel 8×8 Wideband K-/Ka-Band Dual
Circularly Polarized Phased Array Antenna
for CubeSat Communications
Sanghamitro Das , Member, IEEE, Satish Kumar Sharma , Senior Member, IEEE,
Seth W. Waldstein , Member, IEEE, James M. Downey, Member, IEEE, Bryan L. Schoenholz ,
Sarah M. Dever , James A. Nessel , and Rudraishwarya Banerjee , Graduate Student Member, IEEE
Abstract— A novel flat-panel 8×8 wideband dual circularly
polarized (CP) electronically scanned phased array antenna
is proposed, which covers the satellite communications bands
of 22.55–23.55 and 25.5–27.5 GHz. A CP stacked microstrip
patch antenna is used as the element radiator with a structural
modification on the parasitic patch to minimize gain variation.
Since the axial ratio (AR) bandwidth of the element radia-
tor is inherently narrow, sequential rotation is employed to
yield a wide AR bandwidth while forming the 2×2 subarray,
which is then used as a building block to construct the larger
8×8 phased array. The phased array has a simulated scan range
of ±51◦ , ±46◦ , and ±36◦ at 23, 24, and 26.5 GHz, respectively,
assuming ≤3 dB scan loss and AR. A beamforming network
(BFN) is integrated within the stackup of the phased array that
comprises a commercially available silicon beamforming chip.
This facilitates beam steering through the independent control
of the input amplitudes and phases of the individual element
radiators. The practical effects of the BFN on the scanning
performance of the 8×8 phased array are studied, which is
found to slightly degrade the scan ranges. Finally, experiments
were performed on the fabricated prototype, and the measured
scan data showed good correspondence with their simulated
counterparts with >41◦ and 35◦ scan ranges (in +θ-direction)
at 24 and 26.5 GHz, respectively. The corresponding equivalent
isotropic radiated power (EIRP) and G/ T of the 8×8 phased
array are also estimated through measurements.
Index Terms— Circular polarization, flat panel, phased array,
radio frequency integrated circuit (RFIC) beamforming chip,
sequential rotation, wideband.
I. I NTRODUCTION
I N THE recent years, active flat-panel electronically scanned
phased arrays have emerged as the preferred solution
for various satellite communication (SATCOM) applications,
Manuscript received 11 September 2022; revised 8 February 2023; accepted
20 February 2023. Date of publication 15 March 2023; date of current version
5 May 2023. This work was supported by the National Aeronautics and
Space Administration (NASA) Glenn Research Center, Cleveland, OH, USA,
through NASA, under Grant 80NSSC20M0077 P00003. (Corresponding
author: Satish Kumar Sharma.)
Sanghamitro Das, Satish Kumar Sharma, and Rudraishwarya Banerjee are
with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, San Diego State
University, San Diego, CA 92182 USA (e-mail: ssharma@sdsu.edu).
Seth W. Waldstein, James M. Downey, Bryan L. Schoenholz,
Sarah M. Dever, and James A. Nessel are with the National Aeronautics
and Space Administration (NASA) Glenn Research Center, Cleveland,
OH 44135 USA.
Color versions of one or more figures in this article are available at
https://doi.org/10.1109/TAP.2023.3255640.
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0018-926X © 2023 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
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mainly because of their ability to perform fast and agile
beam steering, low profile, lightweight, and the potential
for integration on conformal surfaces [1], [2], [3]. This was
made possible by the arrival of commercially available silicon
beamforming chips, which include both high-power and low-
noise amplifiers, phase shifters, and variable attenuators that
are essential for beam steering and can support multiple
polarizations while facilitating simultaneous transmit (Tx) and
receive (Rx) operations for multiple radiating elements [4], [5].
The other alternative, i.e., reflector antennas, despite being less
expensive, are usually bulky with more complicated assembly
and can have poor accuracy for beam scanning [6], [7], [8], [9].
The main objective of this work is to design a flat-panel
phased array solution compatible with Cube-Satellite plat-
forms that can support the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration’s (NASA’s) lunar communications architecture
plans. An aspect of this plan includes establishing orbiting
lunar relay satellites that can support communications in the
K-/Ka-bands with the lunar surface, the lunar gateway, and
direct-to-earth. In order to have sufficient gain to close the
communication links, the final array size will be of 16×32,
which will radiate dual-CP in both Tx and Rx modes, at two
different operating bands: 22.55–23.55 and 25.5–27.5 GHz
(K-/Ka-bands). Moreover, as shown in Fig. 1, the arrays
should be able to scan within a maximum angular range
of ±15◦ . In this article, a downsized 8×8 array has been
designed to demonstrate the phased array antenna technol-
ogy. It was decided that the axial ratio (AR) occurring at
the highest scan angles must be ≤3 dB to maintain good
polarization purity throughout the scan volume, along with
a ≤3 dB scan loss. In addition, an inter-element spacing of
λ0 /2 (λ0 being the free-space wavelength) at 25 GHz, which is
approximately the center frequency of the two aforementioned
bands together, will be used for the array construction. This
will enable a good compromise between larger scan ranges
and higher gain values, while not resulting in any grating
lobes in the operational beam-scan range and the matching
bandwidth.
Microstrip patch antennas, which are one of the most
popular antenna types due to their compact profile and size,
low cost, lightweight, and well-defined radiation properties,
are most suitable for flat-panel phased arrays [10]. Typically
for SATCOM applications, circularly polarized (CP) radiating
 4154
Fig. 1. Cube-satellite with flat panel phased array antennas for lunar orbital
mission.
elements are employed in order to deal with the signal fading
problem [11]. Oftentimes, SATCOM antennas are realized for
dual-CP radiation in order to add diversity and polarization
agility to the system [12]. Some examples of such SATCOM
antennas can be found in [13], [14], [15], [16], [17], [18],
[19], [20], [21], [22], and [23]. Perhaps, the most popular
technique to achieve dual-CP is to excite a square patch
antenna using two orthogonally placed feeds connected at the
outputs of a quadrature hybrid coupler. In this way, either +90◦
or −90◦ phase difference can be applied between the feed
points based on the choice of the input port, resulting in either
left-hand-circular-polarization (LHCP) or right-hand-circular-
polarization (RHCP) [13], [14], [15], [16], [17]. However, the
hybrid coupler calls for an increased footprint of the feed
structure and introduces additional complexity. Examples can
also be found where two orthogonally placed feed points
are used on a native CP antenna, e.g., corner-truncated or
diagonally fed square patch, to realize dual-CP without the
requirement of a hybrid coupler [18], [19], [20], [21]. Finally,
the examples in [22] and [23] demonstrated dual-CP perfor-
mance at two different bands by employing two radiators of
different electrical sizes, each of them radiating one particular
sense of polarization.
Since the aforementioned frequency bands are very closely
spaced, it was perceived that a single wideband design would
be a more practical solution than a closely spaced dual-band
design. Now, it is rather difficult to realize a microstrip patch
antenna that exhibits both wide impedance and wide AR band-
widths simultaneously without significantly modifying the
antenna and the feeding structure [24], [25], [26], [27], [28],
which again can be challenging at higher frequencies like
K-/Ka-bands because of the many fine feature sizes involved
in the design. As an alternative, a sequential rotation technique
is employed in many array designs to significantly enhance the
AR bandwidth, while improving the purity of circular polar-
ization and pattern symmetry [29], [30], [31], [32]. To improve
the impedance bandwidth, a simple stacked-patch configu-
ration can be used [4], [17], [27], [28], [32], [33]. At this
point, it should also be noted that as the frequency increases,
higher order modes start to appear on the patches, which after
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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 71, NO. 5, MAY 2023
getting mixed with the fundamental radiation mode can tilt
the main beam toward off-boresight angles [34]. This results
in the broadside gain value being considerably reduced and
making the achieved impedance and AR bandwidths somewhat
unusable. Some solutions have been presented in [33] and
[35], where parasitic elements have been placed around the
main radiating patch to improve both impedance bandwidth
and gain flatness, however, at the expense of increased antenna
footprint.
This article proposes a simple dual-probe-fed stacked
microstrip patch configuration as the element radiator, which
attains a wide impedance and gain bandwidth by means of
some novel structural modifications. Some preliminary results
using the particular structural modifications were presented
earlier in [32], where the design only supported single CP
and also did not include any beamforming network (BFN)
design. In the work presented here, the design of the element
radiator has been refined to have much wider impedance
and gain bandwidths, while supporting dual-CP with identical
performances at each polarization. The corresponding details
are presented in Section II. To improve the AR bandwidth, a
sequential rotation technique was applied to form a 2×2 subar-
ray using the element radiator. The details of the subarray and
the analytical explanations describing the sequential rotation
technique have been presented in Section III-A, along with the
corresponding radiation performances. This is followed by the
design of the larger 8×8 phased array in Section III-B, for
which the 2×2 subarrays were used as the building blocks.
The corresponding radiation and scanning performances are
also shown in this section. In Section IV, the practical effects
of the BFN on the radiation and scanning performances of
the 8×8 phased array have been demonstrated. The fabrica-
tion and the measurement setup are discussed in Section V,
followed by the measured results along with a brief discussion
comparing them with the corresponding simulated data. The
performances of the element radiator and the 8×8 phased
array were compared with that of some other state-of-the-
art flat-panel patch-based phased array designs with fully
integrated beamforming circuits [4], [36], [37], [38], [39].
It was seen that the bandwidth performance of the reported
element radiator far exceeds that of the element radiators used
in these examples. Also, the final array exhibited a better AR
bandwidth, while having a comparable scan volume for the
same scan loss conditions, despite only employing a quick and
partial calibration. A detailed description of the comparison
has been added toward the end of Section V. Finally, the
presented work is concluded in Section VI.
II. D ESIGN OF E LEMENT R ADIATOR
A. Element Without Multilayer PCB Stackup
Since sequential rotation is applied during the array forma-
tion, it is generally not necessary for the individual element
to have a wide AR bandwidth, which somewhat reduces the
aforementioned complexity in the element design. However,
the required impedance bandwidth must be realized from the
element antenna. Thus, a simple probe-fed stacked microstrip
patch antenna topology will be sufficient for this array design.
 DAS et al.: FLAT-PANEL 8×8 WIDEBAND K-/Ka-BAND DUAL CP PHASED ARRAY ANTENNA
Fig. 2. Proposed dual-CP microstrip patch radiating element.
A 25 mil-thick Astra1 MT77 dielectric (εr = 3 and tanδ =
0.0017) along with a 4.5 mil-thick Tachyon1 100G prepreg
material (εr = 3.02 and tanδ = 0.0021) was used between
the driven patch and the ground plane. The same dielectric
and prepreg materials were used between the parasitic and
driven patches with thicknesses of 15 and 5.4 mil, respec-
tively. To realize circular polarization, the corners of both
the driven and the parasitic patches were truncated, and a
diagonal slot was added on the driven patch. Moreover, to tune
the matching and control the overall bandwidth [40], four
stubs were symmetrically added to the driven patch along the
x- and y-directions. The schematic of the element radiator is
shown in Fig. 2, along with all the dimensions. An “+”-shaped
slot was introduced on the parasitic patch to effectively reduce
the size of the patch, which in turn helped in moving the
onset of any new modes toward higher frequencies, thus
resulting in an overall almost invariant gain versus frequency
response [32]. Finally, the driven patch was fed by two
orthogonally placed cylindrical via probes of 10 mil diameter
for realizing dual-circular polarization. The excitation was
provided to the feed via-probes using two 50  conductor-
backed coplanar waveguide (CPW) lines on the other side of
the ground plane. Each CPW line is surrounded by a wall of
microvias (6 mil diameter) to provide isolation between the
two lines and suppress substrate modes. All the simulations
have been performed using Ansys HFSS.
The S11 and AR parameters of the element radiator are
shown in Fig. 3(a). It was seen that the −10 dB S11 bandwidth
for the element radiator starts from 23.1 GHz and extends
beyond 30 GHz (>26%). The 3 dB AR bandwidth is expect-
edly narrow: 24.7–27.4 GHz (∼10.4%), with the minimum
occurring at 25.9 GHz. The broadside gain (that does not
include matching losses) versus frequency responses with and
1 Registered trademark.
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4155
Fig. 3. (a) S11 and broadside AR of the radiating element and (b) broadside
gain versus frequency for with and without “+”-shaped slot on the parasitic
patch (LHCP port excited).
Fig. 4. Cross-sectional view of multilayer PCB beamforming stackup.
without the “+”-shaped slot on the parasitic patch is shown in
Fig. 3(b). It can be clearly observed that without the slot, the
gain profile undergoes a considerable drop within the desired
band. By applying the “+”-shaped slot, this gain-drop region is
pushed to higher frequencies, thus enabling an overall almost
invariant gain response in the target bandwidth.
B. Element With Multilayer PCB Stackup
Beamforming in active electronically scanned phased arrays
typically requires additional circuitry to provide dc bias and
establish digital communication with the radio frequency inte-
grated circuit (RFIC) chips. To accommodate these within
the same flat-panel array profile, a multilayer PCB stackup
comprising of several metallic, dielectric, and prepreg lay-
ers is introduced between the ground plane of the patch
antenna and the CPW layer. A cross-sectional view of the
designed multilayer PCB stackup is shown in Fig. 4. The com-
plete stackup, including both the antenna part and the BFN,
comprises 11 layers and has an overall profile thickness
of 2.47 mm.
The corresponding S11 and AR are shown in Fig. 5(a). As it
can be seen, due to the introduction of the additional dielectric
and prepreg layers, all the responses have shifted slightly
toward the lower frequencies. The −10 dB S11 bandwidth
now starts from 22.3 GHz and extends beyond 30 GHz, thus
encompassing the whole desired band of 22.55–27.5 GHz. The
realized gain of the element radiator, which takes into account
 4156
Fig. 5. (a) S11 and broadside AR of the radiating element with multilayer
PCB stackup and (b) corresponding gain versus frequency.
losses from both the antenna structure (i.e., dielectric and
conductor losses) and matching, will be considered hereafter.
A plot is shown in Fig. 5(b), where the broadside realized gain
is plotted as a function of frequency. It can be seen that gain
varies in the range of 4–6 dBic between 22 and 30 GHz.
III. D ESIGN OF W IDEBAND D UAL -C IRCULARLY
P OLARIZED P HASED A RRAY
A. 2×2 Subarray Using Sequential Rotation
It was demonstrated in [41] that a sequentially rotated
square lattice structure exhibits better array performance com-
pared to an equivalent triangular or hexagonal lattice. Thus,
in this work, a 2×2 square subarray lattice was created first
using the element radiator described in Section II, in the
presence of the multilayer PCB stackup. The elements are
separated by 6 mm, which is λ0 /2 at 25 GHz (the center
frequency of the entire desired band). At 27.5 GHz, i.e., the
upper edge of the required bandwidth, the 6 mm spacing trans-
lates to only 0.55λ0 . Thus, although grating lobes may occur
at very high scan angles, the ≤3 dB AR and scan loss range
will most likely be free of grating lobes. The choice of 25 GHz
for determining the inter-element separation provides a good
compromise between the lower mutual couplings between the
element radiators at the higher frequencies that result in the
best achievable gain values for the available array footprint
and larger scan ranges at the lower frequencies. To implement
sequential rotation, each element of the subarray should first
be rotated physically with respect to the neighboring elements
by an angle, followed by the assignment of an input phase
value. The physical rotation angle and the input phase value
for an array of M elements radiating in its dominant mode
can be given by the following equation [42]:
pπ
φ pm = φem = (m−1) , 1≤m≤M (1)
M at φ = 0◦ and 90◦ planes are identical due to the symmetry
where φ pm is the physical rotation angle, φem is the input
phase value, m is the element number, and p is an integer
that determines the step sizes of φ pm and φem . For the
2×2 subarray reported in this work: M = 4 and p = 2, which
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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 71, NO. 5, MAY 2023
Fig. 6. Sequentially rotated 2×2 subarray. Required phases for the LHCP
and RHCP polarizations are marked in blue and red fonts, respectively, and
the physical rotations between consecutive elements are marked in green font.
results in φ pm = φem = 90◦ . The subarray elements along with
their rotation angle and input phase values for both LHCP and
RHCP are shown in Fig. 6.
The total radiated field of the sequentially rotated subarray
with its main beam pointing toward θ = 0◦ can be given by
the following equation [31], [43]:
M
E m θ, φ − φ pm e j [k0 dm sinθsin(φ−φ pm )+φem ] (2)
X
E(θ, φ) =


m=1
where E(θ, φ)
is the total electric field pattern,
E m θ, φ − φ pm is the active electric field pattern of the mth
element rotated by an angle φ pm , k0 is the wavenumber, and
dm specifies the position of the mth element. The radiation
patterns of the 2×2 subarray on both principal planes (φ = 0◦
and 90◦ ) for LHCP excitation at 23 GHz (approximately the
center frequency of the lower band) obtained from the semi-
analytical approach using (2) are shown in Fig. 7. During
this, the active element pattern (AEP) E m was obtained from
HFSS by activating only one element in the 2×2 subarray,
while keeping the remaining three elements terminated with
matched loads. This way, the effects of mutual coupling
among the elements of the 2×2 subarray could be taken
into account during the analysis. Furthermore, during the
estimation of the overall 2×2 subarray pattern using (2), the
physical rotation angle φ pm and the input phase φem enforced
a symmetric consolidation of the otherwise asymmetric AEPs
on both φ = 0◦ and 90◦ planes. As a result, the corresponding
patterns come out to be exactly identical and symmetric on
the two planes, as it can be seen in Fig. 7. The computation
of E(θ, φ) was performed in MATLAB. In addition, the
patterns estimated using the semi-analytical approach are
normalized with respect to the simulated broadside co-pol
(LHCP) realized gain in order to make a direct comparison.
The corresponding simulated patterns obtained from HFSS
are shown in Fig. 8(a). As it can be seen, the patterns shown
in Figs. 7 and 8(a) are almost identical. Also, the patterns
in the structure for both cases. The radiation patterns at
26.5 GHz (center frequency of the upper band) for RHCP
excitation are obtained from the full-wave HFSS simulation
and are shown in Fig. 8(b). It should be noted that the patterns
 DAS et al.: FLAT-PANEL 8×8 WIDEBAND K-/Ka-BAND DUAL CP PHASED ARRAY ANTENNA
Fig. 7. Semi-analytical realized gain patterns for the 2×2 subarray obtained
at 23 GHz (LHCP port excited).
Fig. 8. Simulated realized gain patterns for the 2×2 subarray obtained at
(a) 23 GHz (LHCP port excited) and (b) 26.5 GHz (RHCP port excited).
Fig. 9. Simulated AR (dB) intensity plot for the 2×2 subarray at (a) 23 and
(b) 26.5 GHz.
generated when the RHCP port is excited are identical as
that for the LHCP, and thus, only one of each case from
each frequency was shown for brevity. The realized broadside
gains at 23 and 26.5 GHz are found to be 9.5 and 10.8 dBic,
respectively. The peak co-to-cross polarization separations
that were obtained by estimating the difference between the
maximum values of co- and cross-pol realized gains in the
upper hemisphere (−90◦ < θ < 90◦ ) are found to be 23.3 and
28.2 dB, respectively, at the two frequencies.
Next, it was observed that the broadside AR of the 2×2
subarray in the broadside direction remains ≤0.1 dB through-
out the whole band. The surface distributions of the AR are
plotted at 23 and 26.5 GHz and are shown in Fig. 9(a) and (b),
respectively. It was found that due to the symmetry of the
subarray structure, the AR is also symmetric around the
broadside (i.e., θ = 0◦ ), at each azimuthal (φ) angle. The 3 dB
AR beamwidths at 23 and 26.5 GHz were found to be better
than 72◦ (±36◦ ) and 60◦ (±30◦ ), respectively.
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4157
Fig. 10. 8×8 phased array, formed by placing 2×2 subarrays side-by-side.
Fig. 11. Simulated AR (dB) intensity plot for the 8×8 phased array at (a)
23 and (b) 26.5 GHz.
B. 8×8 Phased Array
The larger 8×8 phased array was formed by placing
the 2×2 subarrays side-by-side and keeping the same 6 mm
inter-element spacing. The top view of the 8×8 phased array is
shown in Fig. 10. It should be noted that although the 2×2 sub-
arrays were used as the building blocks for the larger array, the
effective inter-element spacing still remains 6 mm (or λ0 /2) as
the elements of the 2×2 subarray are fed independently. Due
to the large size of the simulation, data were taken only for a
few frequency points including the edge and center frequencies
of the desired bands. Uniform excitation was applied to the
array throughout this study. Although applying nonuniform
excitation could provide some array pattern benefits such as
sidelobe reduction, it was not considered in the current phased
array design.
The simulated broadside AR is better than 0.006 dB over
the entire frequency range. The 3 dB AR beamwidths for
the 8×8 phased array at 23 and 26.5 GHz were found to be
better than 30◦ (±15◦ ) and 26◦ (±13◦ ), respectively, as found
from the surface AR distributions shown in Fig. 11(a) and (b).
Like the 2×2 subarray, the realized gain pattern for the
8×8 phased array is also symmetric on both φ = 0◦ and
90◦ planes, and identical for both LHCP and RHCP polar-
izations. The corresponding realized gain patterns for LHCP
and RHCP excitations are shown for 23 and 26.5 GHz in
Fig. 12(a) and (b), respectively. The peak realized gain, half-
power beamwidth (HPBW), AR beamwidth, sidelobe level,
and peak co-to-cross pol separation in the upper hemisphere
at 23 and 26.5 GHz are listed in Table I. It can be seen that the
 4158
Fig. 12. Simulated realized gain patterns for the 8×8 phased array at φ =
0◦ and 90◦ for (a) 23 GHz (LHCP port excited) and (b) 26.5 GHz (RHCP
port excited).
TABLE I
R ADIATION PATTERN PARAMETERS FOR THE 8×8 P HASED
A RRAY (I DENTICAL FOR B OTH LHCP AND RHCP E XCITATIONS )
HPBW of the main radiation beam remains smaller than the
AR beamwidth, which ensures good CP coverage throughout
the main beam.
In the next step, progressive phase shifts were applied to
the 8×8 phased array in x- and y-directions to facilitate beam
scanning. The corresponding array factor (AF) can be given
as [44]
8 8
e j (u−1)(k0 d sin θ cos φ+βx ) e j (v−1)(k0 d sin θ sin φ+β y )
X X
AF ∝
u=1 v=1
where u and v are the element numbers in x- and y-directions,
respectively, k0 is the wavenumber, d is the inter-element
separation (= λ0 /2), and βx and β y are the applied progressive
phase shifts in the x- and y-directions, respectively. The step
size for progressive phase shift is 1β = 5.625◦ , which corre-
sponds to the 6 bit phase control ability of the selected chip.
Fig. 13 displays the computed array scanning performance
for the φ = 0◦ plane at 23 GHz that was generated in
MATLAB using (3). For this, the average AEP, which was
obtained by taking the arithmetic mean of the active patterns
of the four central elements with all the remaining elements
terminated with matched loads, was considered as the element
pattern. As a result, the structural symmetry introduced by
the sequential rotation could be taken into account during the
estimation of the overall array pattern, which would otherwise
not be considered if the individual element pattern was used.
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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 71, NO. 5, MAY 2023
Fig. 13. Realized gain scan patterns for the 8×8 phased array obtained from
analytical calculation at 23 GHz, φ = 0◦ .
The envelope of the average AEP, which was obtained by
normalizing the pattern with respect to the broadside array gain
(for βx = 0◦ ), is added to the plot. Fig. 14(a)–(d) demonstrates
the simulated scanning performances for φ = 0◦ and 90◦ cut-
planes, at 23 and 26.5 GHz, respectively. The envelopes of
the average AEPs at the corresponding planes and frequencies
are also added to the individual plots. It can be seen that the
peaks of the array patterns for the computed case precisely
follow the average AEP envelope, whereas the simulated
scanned pattern peaks follow the respective AEP envelopes
fairly closely. Moreover, the simulated and computed scanning
performances for the φ = 0◦ plane at 23 GHz shown in
Figs. 13 and 14(a), respectively, are almost identical. Lastly,
due to the symmetrical arrangement of the array structure, the
resulting beam scans were found to be identical on the two
principal planes (φ = 0◦ and 90◦ ) at each frequency.
Another plot is created to demonstrate the drop in peak
realized gain (i.e., scan loss, with respect to the peak value at
θ = 0◦ ) values and AR in the direction of the corresponding
main beam as a function of the scan angle for both φ =
0◦ and 90◦ planes at 23 and 26.5 GHz, which is shown
in Fig. 15. It was observed that at 23 GHz, the array can
successfully scan between ±51◦ on both φ = 0◦ and 90◦
planes, considering both the ≤3 dB gain drop (scan loss)
and the ≤3 dB AR criteria. At 26.5 GHz, the corresponding
scan range is ±36◦ , which follows the same scan loss and
AR criteria. It should also be noted that a larger scan volume
can be realized if the strict conditions of ≤3 dB scan loss
and AR are relaxed slightly. For example, if the scan loss
criteria can be set as ≤6 dB, the array would easily be able
to scan up to ±72◦ at 23 GHz and ±51◦ at 26.5 GHz. The
(3)
AR at the highest scan angles can be controlled by applying
a full-array calibration. Since a fixed phase shift value has
been applied throughout the bandwidth, the corresponding
scan angles will vary with frequency. Nevertheless, it is not
an immediate concern, since the scan-angle variation is ≤3◦
between the upper and lower band edges of the two specified
SATCOM bands. Also, as demonstrated earlier, the achievable
scan range for the 8×8 phased array is much wider at any
frequency than the required ±15◦ scan range mentioned in
the Introduction section. The sidelobe levels at the highest
scan angles remain better than 9.5 and 10 dB for 23 and
26.5 GHz, respectively. Once again, the sidelobe levels can
be easily improved by applying nonuniform excitation to
the array elements, however, was deemed not required for
the current design. Preliminary simulated results have been
presented in [45]. Finally, the active S-parameters were plotted
in Fig. 16 for progressive phase shift values ranging from
 DAS et al.: FLAT-PANEL 8×8 WIDEBAND K-/Ka-BAND DUAL CP PHASED ARRAY ANTENNA
Fig. 14. Simulated realized gain scan patterns for the 8×8 phased array
obtained at (a) 23 GHz and φ = 0◦ , (b) 23 GHz and φ = 90◦ , (c) 26.5 GHz
and φ = 0◦ , and (d) 26.5 GHz and φ = 90◦ (LHCP port excited, solid lines
are co-pol, and dotted lines are cross-pol).
Fig. 15. Peak realized gain and AR versus scan angle at φ = 0◦ and 90◦
for 23 and 26.5 GHz.
0◦ to 251β (i.e., 140.625◦ ), which result in corresponding
scan range values of ±54◦ at 23 GHz and ±45◦ at 26.5 GHz.
It was seen that the active S11 is better than −10 dB at both
23 and 26.5 GHz, and better than −9 dB in the whole range
of 22.55–27.5 GHz for all the different scan angles.
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4159
Fig. 16. Active S11 for different progressive phase shift values for the
8×8 phased array.
IV. P RACTICAL C ONSIDERATIONS FOR I MPLEMENTATION
OF A BFN ON THE 8×8 P HASED A RRAY
In this section, the implementation of the BFN for the
8×8 phased array and its effect on the array performance will
be discussed. The RFIC chip that was selected to implement
beamforming is the Anokiwave AWMF-0165 [46]. The chip
architecture supports dual beam or dual polarization array
designs through the combination of two independent quad
element half-duplex beamforming circuits. Both Tx and Rx
modes have 6 bit phase control (minimum phase step of
5.625◦ ) and 5 bit amplitude/attenuation control (minimum
amplitude step of 0.5 dB, up to 7.5 dB). Thus, a single
chip is capable of fully controlling one 2×2 subarray, and
16 such chips would be required for controlling the full
8×8 phased array. A 1-to-32 stripline power splitter feeds the
16 chips, with the terminal 1-to-2 power splitters feeding the
two inputs (outputs) of each chip. The power splitter network
is implemented on a separate stripline layer than the CPW feed
layer to provide flexible compact routing. Via fencing around
the transmission lines is used to improve isolation and suppress
substrate modes. The design layout of the 8×8 phased array,
along with the 1-to-32 power splitter and the chip footprints,
is shown in Fig. 17(a). The S-parameters response for the
1-to-32 splitter in the presence of practical losses is shown
in Fig. 17(b). The overall S21 incurred by the multistage
splitter is in the range of 18.5–19 dB (i.e., insertion loss of
3.5–4 dB) over the desired bandwidth. This includes insertion
losses from the five 1-to-2 splitter stages and the intermediate
transmission lines. Good impedance matching over the entire
band is maintained.
To see the effects of the additional circuitry on the 8×8
phased array performance, the array was co-simulated with the
simulated splitter response data and vendor-supplied measured
Rx- and Tx-mode chip data in the circuit simulator tool of the
Ansys Electronics Desktop package. The Anokiwave RFIC
chip is rated for operation only between 24 and 28 GHz
ranges; however, the chip can work with reduced performance
at frequencies lower than 24 GHz. The chip data were available
only in the range of 23.75–28 GHz; consequently, the results
for the co-simulation are obtained only at this range.
The corresponding broadside AR at different frequencies
was compared for before and after co-simulation and is listed
in Table II. It can be seen that once the real losses are
considered, the AR is no longer better than only 0.006 dB,
but rather have a considerable value between 0.37 and 1.3 dB
for Rx mode and between 1.2 and 2.2 dB for Tx mode at
the desired band, which is still much smaller than 3 dB.
 4160 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 71, NO. 5, MAY 2023

Fig. 17. (a) Design layout of the 8×8 phased array showing the 1-to-32
power splitter network, the chip footprints, and the array elements and
(b) S-parameters response of the 1-to-32 power splitter.

TABLE II
C OMPARISON OF B ROADSIDE AR B EFORE AND A FTER C O -S IMULATION

TABLE III
R ADIATION P ERFORMANCE C OMPARISON AT 24 GH Z , B EFORE AND
A FTER C O -S IMULATION [F IG . 18(A) AND ( B )]

Fig. 18. Peak realized gain and AR versus scan angle at φ = 0◦ and 90◦
planes before and after co-simulation (a) 24 GHz, Rx mode, (b) 24 GHz,
Tx mode, (c) 26.5 GHz, Rx mode, and (d) 26.5 GHz, Tx mode.

V. FABRICATED P ROTOTYPE AND E XPERIMENTAL

V ERIFICATION

A. Prototype and Test Setup

The peak realized gains and AR as functions of scan angle
for Rx and Tx modes at 24 and 26.5 GHz are plotted in
Fig. 18(a)–(d), respectively. The major outcomes are compiled
in Tables III and IV. It can be seen that the introduction of
practical losses through the splitter and chip data resulted
in a moderate degradation of scan range; however, the scan
performance remains largely symmetric.
A prototype for the 8×8 phased array was fabricated by
Accurate Circuit Engineering, Inc. (ACE-PCB, Inc.). The
photographs of the top and the bottom sides of the fabri-
cated prototype are shown in Fig. 19(a) and (b), respectively.
A schematic of the operational test setup for controlling the
8×8 phased array antenna is shown in Fig. 20. To program
the necessary amplitude and phase values into the RFIC

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 DAS et al.: FLAT-PANEL 8×8 WIDEBAND K-/Ka-BAND DUAL CP PHASED ARRAY ANTENNA
TABLE IV
R ADIATION P ERFORMANCE C OMPARISON AT 26.5 GH Z , B EFORE AND
A FTER C O -S IMULATION [F IG . 18( C ) AND ( D )]
Fig. 19. (a) Top and (b) bottom sides of the fabricated 8×8 dual-CP phased
array prototype.
Fig. 20. Schematic of the operational test setup for the 8×8 phased array.
chips of the BFN, a LabJack U6 interface controller [47]
was used. Inputs were sent to the LabJack device from
a remote computer through a USB cable using a Python-
generated graphical user interface (GUI), which is shown in
Fig. 21. The GUI is designed to handle dual-CP and choose
Rx and Tx modes just by the selection of the appropriate
option. The signal inputs and outputs from the LabJack
device are processed through a voltage-level conversion circuit
before connecting to the serial peripheral interface (SPI)
port mounted on the beamforming board. The corresponding
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4161
Fig. 21. Screenshot of GUI developed for controlling the 8×8 phased array.
Fig. 22. Measurement setup for the 8×8 phased array at the NASA GRC.
radiation patterns of the 8×8 phased array were measured in
the spherical near-field anechoic chamber of the NASA Glenn
Research Center (GRC). The measurement setup is depicted
in Fig. 22.
A partial but quick calibration was applied to the 8×8
phased array during the measurement. The amplitude and
phase imbalances for each of the chip outputs were obtained
from the vendor-supplied data, which were then applied as
fixed offset values to all the chips present in the design using
the GUI. This, although not being a traditional full-array
calibration, resulted in a better scan performance than the after-
co-simulation results presented in Section IV.
B. Measurement Results
1) Scanning Performance: Measurements were carried out
with the 8×8 phased array in Tx mode since the AR perfor-
mance in the Tx mode was found to be slightly worse after
the co-simulation. Moreover, since the simulated scanning
response is somewhat symmetric and identical for ±θ angles,
measurements were taken only at the +θ angles for brevity.
Scanning was performed on the φ = 0◦ and 90◦ planes at
24 and 26.5 GHz. The measured scanned patterns along with
the corresponding simulated (after co-simulation) patterns are
shown in Figs. 23 and 24. All the measured patterns were nor-
malized with respect to the peak of the corresponding broad-
side pattern. It can be seen that the measured patterns have
 4162 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 71, NO. 5, MAY 2023
Fig. 23. Measured and simulated scan patterns for the 8×8 phased array
at 24 GHz on (a) φ = 0◦ plane and (b) φ = 90◦ plane (LHCP port excited).
Fig. 24. Measured and simulated scan patterns for the 8×8 phased array at
26.5 GHz on (a) φ = 0◦ plane and (b) φ = 90◦ plane (LHCP port excited).
lower scan losses at the high scan angles. The corresponding
measured directivity values could not be obtained as the
measurements were limited only to the φ = 0◦ and 90◦ planes.
Nevertheless, the HPBWs of the measured patterns, which are
indicative of the measured directivities, were compared with
their simulated counterparts at each scan angle and are listed
in Table V. As it can be seen, the measured HPBWs are almost
equal to the corresponding simulated values, and thus, it can
be concluded that the measured directivities are almost equal
to their simulated counterparts. The higher simulated scan loss,
which appeared in the simulated results after considering the
practical chip effects, could be compensated by the application
of the partial calibration.
The measured scan loss and AR for both the LHCP and
RHCP excitation cases are plotted as a function of scan angles
for the two frequencies and are shown in Figs. 25 and 26,
respectively. It can be seen from Fig. 25 that for the LHCP
excitation, both the scan loss and AR at 24 GHz remain
better than 3 dB for a range over 41◦ . At 26.5 GHz, the
scan loss is better than 3 dB for a range of more than 37◦
in the φ = 0◦ plane and a range of approximately 35◦ in
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Fig. 25. Measured scan loss and AR versus scan angle at φ = 0◦ and 90◦
planes (a) 24 and (b) 26.5 GHz (LHCP port excited).
TABLE V
C OMPARISON B ETWEEN S IMULATED AND M EASURED HPBW S AT
D IFFERENT S CAN A NGLES (F IGS . 23 AND 24)
TABLE VI
C OMPARISON B ETWEEN S IMULATED AND M EASURED S CAN L OSS AND
AR P ERFORMANCES (O NLY LHCP I S C OMPARED )
the φ = 90◦ plane. Additionally, the AR remains better than
3 dB beyond 37◦ for both planes at 26.5 GHz. As can be
seen from Fig. 26, the scan loss and AR responses for the
RHCP excitation case are very similar to the LHCP results
shown in Fig. 25 (except the AR in the φ = 90◦ plane
at 24 GHz and scan loss in the φ = 90◦ plane at 26.5 GHz
being a little higher). This firmly establishes the ability of
the 8×8 phased array to radiate dual-CP. A comparison is
made between the measured and simulated scan loss and AR
performances for the LHCP case and is shown in Table VI.
It can be noticed that the measured ranges are considerably
better than the corresponding values obtained following the co-
simulation, and the scan ranges are in fact trying to approach
 DAS et al.: FLAT-PANEL 8×8 WIDEBAND K-/Ka-BAND DUAL CP PHASED ARRAY ANTENNA
TABLE VII
C OMPARISON OF E LEMENT AND A RRAY P ERFORMANCES W ITH
Fig. 26. Measured scan loss and AR versus scan angle at φ = 0◦ and 90◦
planes (a) 24 and (b) 26.5 GHz (RHCP port excited).
the before-co-simulation values given in Tables III and IV.
This clearly demonstrates the effectiveness of the applied
partial calibration. Finally, it should be noted that a fixed
value should not be used for calibrating all the RFIC chips,
since they can still have slight amplitude/phase fluctuations
at their outputs, including other deviations resulting from
electromagnetic-coupling-induced variations in the individual
patch element responses and/or during the manufacturing
process. Instead, an extensive elementwise calibration should
be performed in order to compensate for all the different chip
output variations, which has the potential of further improving
the CP scan performance for the 8×8 phased array, particularly
at high scan angles.
2) EIRP and G/T Measurement: An open-ended waveg-
uide probe (OEWG) was aligned on boresight of the array
in the far-field to measure equivalent isotropic radiated power
(EIRP) and gain over noise temperature (G/T ). For the EIRP
measurement, power meters were placed at the input to the
array using a directional coupler and the output of the OEWG
while a signal generator provided a varying continuous wave
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4163
THE S TATE OF THE A RT
(CW) input power. Cable, free space path loss as well as probe
gain were compensated out of the EIRP measurement. The
probe was manually rotated to measure power in the vertical
(V ) and horizontal (H ) polarizations. EIRP with a CP array
polarization is estimated by summing the V and H power
measurements, as the power meters do not measure phase. The
LHCP configured array produced 55.5 and 50.9 dBm EIRP
when operated at the 1 dB compression points for 23 and
26.5 GHz, respectively. The computed EIRP at 26.5 GHz was
found to be 51.4 dBm, which is very close to the measured
value. The slight difference between the measured and com-
puted EIRP values can be attributed to the additional losses
caused by the heatsink structure used during measurement and
the thermal gap filler material placed between the heatsink and
beamforming chip surfaces.
G/T was measured with the same OEWG probe in the
far field to provide a gain reference for the cold-source
technique [48]. Vector V and H measurements
√ are combined
to synthesize CP using [(H ± j V )/ 2]. The LHCP configured
array measured −8.0 and −6.5 dB/K with a 303 K scene tem-
perature at 23 and 26.5 GHz, respectively. The corresponding
G/T at 26.5 GHz could be computed as −6.4 dB/K, which
once again closely corroborated the measured value.
C. Comparison With the State-of-the-Art
The performances of the 8×8 phased array along with the
element radiator were compared with that of some recent
phased array designs from the literature [4], [32], [36], [37],
[38], [39]. Comparison has been limited to only patch-based
phased arrays, where the corresponding beamforming circuits
have been fully integrated along with the array within a
compact flat-panel package. As such, cases with external
beamformer networks were not considered. From the perfor-
mance comparison of the element radiators, it can be seen
that the reported design presents a much wider impedance
bandwidth compared to other examples and also demonstrates
a sufficiently wide 3 dB gain bandwidth, which is the result
of a novel structural modification on the parasitic patch as
 4164
described in Section II-A. Both the bandwidths are signif-
icantly improved when compared to the single-CP design
presented earlier in [32]. It should be noted that the final
array performance will be limited by the operating range of the
selected beamforming chip. Nevertheless, having a wideband
design like this allows one to easily select the array operating
range simply by choosing a different beamforming chip, while
using the same element design.
The AR bandwidth of the full array was also found to
be better than the other examples, mainly due to the good
narrowband AR response of the element radiator and the
sequential rotation technique that was applied later during
array formation. Next, it can be seen that most of the other
examples exhibit wider scan ranges. However, it should be
noted that most of them have >3 dB scan loss, and sometimes
>3 dB AR, which were the strict conditions imposed on the
reported 8×8 phased array. Another reason to not have a very
wide scan range is that the inter-element separation for the
reported array was selected based on a frequency, which is
approximately at the middle of the desired band, in order to
have a good compromise between higher gain values at the
upper band (required for closing the link) that are achievable
from the available footprint without causing any grating lobes
and large-enough scan ranges at the lower band. Nevertheless,
higher scan ranges that are comparable to other examples
can be achieved if the strict 3 dB scan loss conditions are
slightly relaxed (±72◦ at 23 GHz and ±51◦ at 26.5 GHz with
6 dB scan loss, as mentioned in Section III-B), and a full
elementwise calibration is applied to improve the CP qualities
at the highest scan angles. Lastly, it can be seen that unlike
some of the other examples, the reported 8×8 phased array
can be operated in either Tx and Rx modes throughout the
desired band.
VI. C ONCLUSION
This article demonstrated the design, simulation, and exper-
imental validation of an 8×8 sequentially rotated wideband
dual CP phased array antenna, which employed a wideband
stacked microstrip patch as the element radiator. A novel struc-
tural modification placed within the parasitic patch enabled
a wide gain bandwidth for the array, while the narrow AR
bandwidth of the element radiator was improved by imple-
menting a sequential rotation technique. In the array, a silicon
RFIC chip-based BFN was integrated on the backside of the
PCB stackup, thus making the overall structure flat and low
profile. The phased array demonstrated excellent measured
scan performances all the way up to 41◦ at 24 GHz and 35◦
at 26.5 GHz on both of its principal planes, with a quick and
simple partial calibration and without the application of any
nonuniform amplitude excitations at the inputs of the element
radiators. A full array calibration as well as nonuniform
amplitude excitations, however, can always be applied to the
array in future to further improve performance.
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4165
Sanghamitro Das (Member, IEEE) received the
B.Sc. degree (Hons.) in physics from the University
of Calcutta, Kolkata, WB, India, in 2008, the B.Tech.
and M.Tech. degrees in radio physics and electron-
ics from the University of Calcutta, in 2011 and
2013, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree in electro-
magnetics and microwaves from the Department of
Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of
Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada, in 2019.
He is currently a Post-Doctoral Fellow with San
Diego State University, San Diego, CA, USA. His
current research interests include phased arrays for defense/space applica-
tions, novel electrically small antennas, high-gain and wideband antennas,
3-D-printable antenna systems, and metamaterial flat lenses.
Dr. Das received the Alberta Innovates Graduate Student Scholarship in
2014 and the IEEE AP-S Doctoral Research Grant in 2016 while pursuing
his Ph.D. degree. He served as an Active Volunteer for the IEEE AP-S/MTT-S
joint chapters of both Kolkata Section and Northern Canada Section. He serves
as a Reviewer for several IEEE journals including the IEEE T RANSACTIONS
ON A NTENNAS AND P ROPAGATION , IEEE A NTENNAS AND W IRELESS
P ROPAGATION L ETTERS, IEEE ACCESS , and IEEE O PEN J OURNAL OF
A NTENNAS AND P ROPAGATION.
Satish Kumar Sharma (Senior Member, IEEE)
received the B.Tech. degree in electronics engineer-
ing from the Kamla Nehru Institute of Technology,
Sultanpur, UP, India, in 1991, and the Ph.D. degree
in electronics engineering from the Indian Insti-
tute of Technology (IIT), Banaras Hindu University
(BHU), Varanasi, UP, India, in 1997.
From March 1999 to April 2001, he was a Post-
Doctoral Fellow with the Department of Electrical
and Computer Engineering, University of Manitoba,
Winnipeg, MB, Canada. He was a Senior Antenna
Engineer with InfoMagnetics Technologies Corporation, Winnipeg, from May
2001 to August 2006. Simultaneously, he was also a Research Associate with
the University of Manitoba, from June 2001 to August 2006. In August
2006, he joined the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering,
San Diego State University (SDSU), San Diego, CA, USA, as an Assistant
Professor. Here, he has developed an Antenna Laboratory, teaches courses
in applied electromagnetics, and advises B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. students
and post-doctoral fellows. Since 2014, he has been a Full Professor and
the Director of the Antenna and Microwave Laboratory (AML). He has
authored or coauthored of more than 300 research articles published in the
referenced international journals and conferences and holds two U.S. and one
Canadian patents. He has co-edited three volumes of “Handbook of Reflector
Antennas and Feed Systems, Volume 1: Theory and Design of Reflectors,
Volume II: Feed Systems, and Volume III: Applications of Reflectors” (Artech
House, USA). He has coedited/coauthored book “Multifunctional Antennas
and Arrays for Wireless Communication Systems” (IEEE Press/Wiley, USA).
His current research interests include the millimeter-wave antennas, beam
steering antennas, massive MIMO antennas, 5G communication antennas,
beamforming networks, antennas for the Internet of Things (IoT), miniatur-
ized antennas, ultrawideband, multiband and broadband antennas, reconfig-
urable and frequency agile antennas, feeds for reflector antennas, waveguide
horns and polarizers, electrically small antennas, RFID antennas, active
antennas, frequency selective surfaces, metasurfaces, and microwave passive
components.
Dr. Sharma received the IEEE AP-S Harold A. Wheeler Prize Paper
Award in 2015, the National Science Foundation’s Prestigious Faculty Early
Development (CAREER) Award in 2009, and the Young Scientist Award
of URSI Commission B, Field and Waves, during the URSI Triennial
International Symposium on Electromagnetic Theory, Pisa, Italy, in 2004.
He was recognized as the Outstanding Associate Editor (AE) for the IEEE
T RANSACTION ON A NTENNAS AND P ROPAGATION (IEEE TAP) journal in
July 2014. He served as the Associate Editor for the IEEE TAP and currently
serving as the Associate Editor for the IEEE A NTENNAS AND W IRELESS
P ROPAGATION L ETTERS. He was the Chair or a Co-Chair of the several
Student Paper Contests in different conferences and symposia and served on
the subcommittee of the Education Committee for the IEEE Antennas and
Propagation Society for the organization of the student paper contests. He is
a Full Member of the U.S. National Committee for the International Union
of Radio Science (USNC-URSI), Commission B, a Senior Member of URSI,
and currently serving as the Chair of Technical Activities for the USNC/URSI
Commission B.
 4166 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 71, NO. 5, MAY 2023
Seth W. Waldstein (Member, IEEE) received the
B.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering
from the University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH,
USA, in 2017 and 2019, respectively.
He has been with High Frequency Communi-
cations Branch, National Aeronautics and Space
Administration (NASA), Glenn Research Center,
Cleveland, OH, USA, as a Research Electron-
ics Engineer since 2018, with a focus on GaN
high-power amplifier designs, free-space materials
measurements/sensing, and phased array antenna
development.
James M. Downey (Member, IEEE) received the
B.S.E.E. degree from the University of Toledo,
Toledo, OH, USA, in 2005, and the M.S. and Ph.D.
degrees in electrical and computer engineering from
Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA, in
2008 and 2012, respectively.
He is currently the RF Technical Leader of the
Advanced High Frequency Branch, National Aero-
nautics and Space Administration (NASA) Glenn
Research Center, Cleveland, OH, USA. His current
research interests include wireless communications,
navigation, RF measurement techniques, and antennas (including phased
arrays) for aeronautical and space applications.
Bryan L. Schoenholz received the B.S. degree in
electrical engineering from the University of Dayton,
Dayton, OH, USA, in 2007.
He started his career in 2008 developing control
systems for the Combustor Facilities of the Engine
Research Building at the National Aeronautics and
Space Administration (NASA) Glenn Research Cen-
ter, Cleveland, OH, USA, before moving to the
Flight Communications Branch in 2011, in support
of research and development activities for NASA
communications systems. His current research work
is in smart antenna technologies, particularly the application of phased array
antenna for space and aeronautical systems, where he serves as the Emulation
and Metrology Technical Leader for the Advanced High Frequency Branch,
Communications and Intelligent Systems Division, NASA Glenn Research
Center.
Authorized licensed use limited to: COMSATS INSTITUTE OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY. Downloaded on February 23,2024 at 06:49:49 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
Sarah M. Dever received the B.S. degree in electri-
cal and computer engineering from The Ohio State
University, Columbus, OH, USA, in 2021.
She has been with the National Aeronautics and
Space Administration (NASA) Glenn Research Cen-
ter, Cleveland, OH, USA, since 2020, supporting
phased array antenna work by writing the antenna
controllers and performing antenna measurements.
James A. Nessel received the B.S. and M.S. degrees
in electrical engineering from Arizona State Univer-
sity, Tempe, AZ, USA, in 2002 and 2004, respec-
tively, and the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering
from The University of Akron, Akron, OH, USA,
in 2015.
In 2004, he joined the Antennas and Optical
Systems Branch, NASA Glenn Research Center,
Cleveland, OH, USA, where his research interests
included novel antenna designs, phased array anten-
nas, microwave radiometry, and atmospheric propa-
gation studies and compensation techniques in the Ka- and millimeter-wave
bands. Since 2018, he has been the Chief of the Advanced High Frequency
Branch, Communications and Intelligent Systems Division, NASA Glenn
Research Center, where he oversees and guides research in advanced RF
technologies in support of aeronautics, near Earth, and lunar communications
applications.
Rudraishwarya Banerjee (Graduate Student Mem-
ber, IEEE) received the B.Tech. and M.Tech. degrees
(with specialization in microwave and wireless engi-
neering) in radio physics and electronics from
the University of Calcutta, Kolkata, WB, India,
in 2013 and 2015, respectively. She is currently
pursuing the Ph.D. degree with San Diego State
University, San Diego, CA, USA, and the University
of California at Irvine, Irvine, CA, USA, under a
joint doctoral program.
Her current research interests include different
types of dual linear/circular polarized radio frequency integrated circuit
(RFIC)-based phased array antennas with integrated beamforming network
for satellite communication (SATCOM) and 5G applications.
Ms. Banerjee is the Gold Medalist of University of Calcutta in 2015. She
serves as a reviewer for IEEE A NTENNAS AND W IRELESS P ROPAGATION
L ETTERS (AWPL). She was the Finalist of the Student Paper Competition
in 2022 IEEE International Symposium on Phased Array Systems and
Technology (PAST).