Development of a Ka-band active phased array antenna for mobile SATCOM stations

This paper describes a Ka-band active phased array antenna for mobile SATCOM stations. The active phased array is a fully electronic beam-scanning antenna system and is the most technically challenging component in the system development of the Japanese engineering test satellite, COMETS. The hardware components of the antenna, such as antenna element, LNA, and MMIC phase shifter, are described. Antenna tracking performances were measured and analyzed using a land mobile station and an aeronautical mobile station.