Novel Antenna Technologies for Small-Satellite and Terrestrial Applications A THESIS ...

118 Pages·2010·6.44 MB·English

UI\II\lt:P<::iTV OF I+~WAI'I LIBRARY
Novel Antenna Technologies for Small-Satellite and Terrestrial
Applications
A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE DMSION OF THE
UNIVERSITY OF HAWAI'I IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT
OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF
MASTER OF SCIENCE
IN
ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING
MAY 2008
By
Brandon O. Takase
Thesis Committee:
Wayne A. Shiroma, Chairperson
Tep Dobry
Eric L. Miller
,
j
We certify that we have read this thesis and that, in our opinion, it is satisfactory in scope
and quality as a thesis for the degree of Master of Science in Electrical Engineering.
THESIS COMMITTEE
Novel Antenna Technologies for Small-Satellite and Terrestrial
Applications
Copyright 2008
by
Brandon O. Takase
i
To my dad, mom, older brother Michael, younger sister Courtney and the rest of
my family and friends, who have supported me throughout my graduate studies and my
future career aspirations.
ii
Acknowledgments
I would first like to thank my advisor Dr. Wayne Shiroma for giving me the op
portunity to grow as a student of engineering and as a person in life.
I am very grateful to Dr. Grant Shiroma for the guidance he willingly gave me
throughout my graduate studies. I would also like to acknowledge Dr. Tep Dobry and Dr.
Eric Miller, for their advice and support.
To the past and present members of the MMRL group that I had the pleasure of
working with: Dr. Grant Shiroma (who I would like to mention again), Dr. Ryan Miyamoto,
Justin Roque, Chad Kawakami, Anpeter Nguyen, Kristina Wong, Joseph Cardenas, Monte
Watanabe, Justin Akagi, Ryan Pang, Reece lwami, Alex Zamora, Wade Tonaki, Tyler
Tamashiro, and Toy Lim, thank you for your continuing hard work and dedication. Best of
wishes to the MMRL group.
Finally, I am grateful to Referentia Systems Incorporated, the Missile Defense
Agency, Progeny Systema, Oceanit, and NSF for funding my research.
iii
Abstract
This thesis focuses on novel antenna technologies for small-satellite and terres
trial applications. A network of small satellites provides inherent redundancy and mission
flexibility by reconfiguring and redistributing mission tasks. However, the challenge in de
signing a distributed small-satellite network is in establishing and maintalning a reliable
crosslink with other satellites in the network without a priori knowledge of their positions.
Several solutions are presented: an autonomous, full-duplex retrodirective system capable
of maintaining a 2-D crosslink and a planar inverted-F antenna capable of omnidirectional
operation. Retrodirective arrays are also applied in terrestrial applications where they are
demonstrated to reduce multipath fading.
iv
Contents
List of Tables vi
List of Figures vii
1 Introduction 1
2 Small-Satellite Crosslinks Using an Angle Detecting and Phase Shifting
Retrodirective System 5
2.1 I-D Retrodirective System. . . . 8
2.1.1 I-D Array. . . . . . . . . 8
2.1.2 Angle-Detecting Array. . 9
2.1.3 I-D Control Circuit ... 13
2.2 I-D Experimental Results . . . . 16
2.3 I-D Retrodirective Crosslink. . . 19
2.4 2-D Retrodirective System. . . . 28
2.4.1 2-D Sparse Array. . . . . 30
2.4.2 Angle-Detecting Array. . . 30
2.4.3 2-D Control Circuit .... 31
2.5 2-D Experimental Results . . . . . 35
2.6 2-D Retrodirective Crosslink. . . . 39
3 Retrodirective Antennas for Terrestrial Applications 52
3.1 Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
3.2 Experimental Verification ..... 61
3.2.1 PCA Design. . . . . . . . . . 63
3.2.2 Results ............ 65
3.3 Increased ReHector Separation Distance 70
4 PIFAs for Small-Satellite Network Communication 73
4.1 Planar Inverted-F Antenna (PIFA) 75
4.1.1 Design.......... 75
4.1.2 Single-Frequency PIFAs . . 77
v
4.2 PIFA Measurements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
4.2.1 Definition of the Radiation Pattern Measurements 80
4.2.2 Results: Single-Frequency PIFAs . . . . . . . . . . 81
4.2.3 Results: Single-Frequency PIFAs Mounted on a CubeSat Structure. 86
4.2.4 Ground Plane Effects on Impedance Bandwidth of the PIFAs 90
5 Conclusions and Future Work 94
5.1 Conclusions.................... 94
5.2 Future Work: Secure Retrodirective Crosslink . 96
Bibliography 99
vi
List of Tables
2.1 Pointing error of a 1-D retrodirective system at 6.5 GHz with angle detecting
at 1.2 GHz. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 19
2.2 Pointing error of a 1-D retrodirective system at 6.5 GHz with angle detecting
at 1.0 GHz. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 22
2.3 Retrodirective-to-retrodirective: Pointing error of a 1-D retrodirective system
at 6.5 GHz with angle detecting at 1.0 GHz. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 24
2.4 Retrodirective-to-retrodirective: Pointing error of a 1-D retrodirective system
at 6.5 GHz with angle detecting at 1.2 GHz. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 24
2.5 Pointing error of a 2-D retrodirective system at 6.5 GHz with angle detecting
at 1.2 GHz. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 35
2.6 Pointing error of a 2-D retrodirective system at 6.5 GHz with angle detecting
at 1.0 GHz. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 44
2.7 Retrodirective-to-retrodirective: Pointing error of a 2-D retrodirective system
at 6.5 GHz with angle detecting at 1.0 GHz. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 51
2.8 Retrodirective-to-retrodirective: Pointing error of a 2-D retrodirective system
at 6.5 GHz with angle detecting at 1.2 GHz. . . . . 51
4.1 Measured bandwidth and cross-polarization ratio. . 85
4.2 Measured bandwidth and cross-polarization ratio for the PIFA with mounting
orientations shown in Fig. 4.15. ........................ 88
vii
List of Figures
LIOn January 11, 2007, a Chinese missile shot down its own earth-orbiting
satellite [1]. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 2
1.2 On February 21,2008, a United States Navy warship shot down an American
spy satellite orbiting 130 miles over the Pacific Ocean [2]. .......... 2
1.3 A distributed network of small satellites capable of distributing mission tasks. 3
1.4 An overview of the work presented in this thesis. In Chapter 2, a retrodi
rective crosslink between two systems is presented. In Chapter 3, a study of
the performance of a phase-conjugating array (PCA) is presented for several
multipath environments. In Chapter 4, two PIFAs that operate at different
frequencies are designed and tested on a small-satellite structure. . . . . .. 4
2.1 In ideal intra-network communications, one system would (a) initiate commu
nications with an omnidirectional antenna, thereby (b) establishing a retrodi
rective crosslink with the other system, and then (c) power down the inter-
rogator to create a secure crosslink. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 7
2.2 Block diagram of the 1-D retrodirective system showing the three major
parts: angle-detecting array, control circuit, and 1-D array. 9
2.3 1-D retrodirective system layout. . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
2.4 Photo of the 1-D array with phase shifters at 6.5 GHz. . . . 11
2.5 Photo of the 1-D angle-detecting system at 1.2 GHz. . . . . 12
2.6 Measured error voltage Verr vs. phase difference ¢,. of the phase detector at
1.2 GHz. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 13
2.7 Schematic of the 1-D control circuit. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 14
2.8 Measured phase shift versus control voltage of the Hittite HMC538LP4 phase
shifter at 6.5 GHz. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 16
2.9 Bistatic measurement setup for the antenna radiation pattern. ....... 17
2.10 1-D theoretical and measured bistatic radiation pattern at 6.5 GHz with
interrogator at (a) 0°, (b) -15° and (c) +15°. Angle detecting was done at
1.2 GHz. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
2.11 Bistatic measurement setup for the full.-duplex testing. 20
2.12 Circulator network for full-duplex testing. . . . . . . . 20