Phased Array for UHF satellite ground station - Raising Efficiency and Lowering Costs through Heterodyne Steering

Abstract

Existing high gain antennas for the communication with orbiting satellites are often large to reach sufficient gain and require mechanical two-dimensional steering to be dynamically pointed at passing satellites (or other moving objects). For the scope of this thesis specifically the communication with NTNU's own HYPSO satellite shall be considered.

If the usage of such a costly and maintenance intensive steering mechanic can be avoided by the use of a phased array antenna the complexity of an antenna system could be greatly reduced.

This thesis shall investigate the fitness and usability of the heterodyne steering method to synthesize phase shifted signals for phased array antennas. In doing so regularly available off-the-shelf components shall be used.