A New Double Polarization Isoflux Antenna

This paper provides the results of an activity framed in a GSTP contract financed by the European Space Agency aimed at the design of an X-band antenna for data downlink (DDL) from LEO satellites. These antennas typically have an isoflux radiation pattern and operate in double circular polarization. The proposed solution is a fully metallic low profile antenna based on an equivalent impedance surface realized by concentric corrugations and fed by a low profile feeding system. In this paper, we first introduce the requirements according to which the antenna has been designed, and then present the designed antenna along with a comparison between numerical and experimental results.