Periodic Reporting for period 1 - CSA-EU (Highly Disruptive and Compact Antenna Systems for Small Satellites with Application to Surveillance, Environmental and Crop-Growth Analysis, Enabling European Union Dominance in the Space Industry)
Periodo di rendicontazione: 2017-01-01 al 2018-12-31
As a result of these interactions, for example, increased communications and observations of airplanes by a constellation of Cubesats by Alab Orbital was put into practice. These interactions also allowed for the host institution; i.e. HWU to work with Alab Orbital which allowed for new antennas to be placed on solar panels for space-ready demonstration. This can increase the efficiency of the solar panel bus in that they represent a dual-function (antenna for communications and solar power energy harvesting) to improve the durability of the satellite and its lifespan. The work also allowed for the design of new millimeter-wave antenna system which used guided-wave concepts for beam steering and has applications to communications between satellites. These activities are important in that improved data links can be achieved between satellites to improve earth observation and communications and improve the accuracy and knowledge location of airplanes when traveling across the Atlantic ocean for example.
The work of WP1 led to the demonstration of low cost prototypes for the above described antenna system using PCB technologies for microsatellites and other small satellites such as picosats. Basically, a number of prototype designs were implemented due to the different satellite platforms designed for; i.e. cubesat platform (10 cm by 10 cm) and a nanosat platform (5 cm by 5 cm). Antenna integration/implementation with a solar panel was also demonstrated by the researcher. Some of these designs works were published in a special session at a conference and a special session in a peer-reviewed journal paper for small satellite antennas. For example:
- S.K. Podilchak, et al., "Solar-Panel Integrated Circularly Polarized Meshed Patch for Cubesats and Other Small Satellites," in IEEE Access, vol. 7, pp. 96560-96566, 2019.
- S.K. Podilchak “New Developments in compact antennas for picosatellites and other small satellites,” 3rd PocketQube Workshop, Glasgow, Scotland, Sept. 2019.
- S.K. Podilchak, et al., “Compact Microstrip-Based Folded-Shorted Patches by PCB Technology for Use on Microsatellites,” IEEE Antennas and Propagation Magazine – Special Issue on CubeSat Antennas, vol. 59, no. 2, pp. 88 – 95, Apr. 2017.
- A.H. Lokman, P.J. Soh, S. Azemi, S.K. Podilchak, S. Chalermwisutkul, M.F. Jamlos, A.A. Al-Hadi, P. Akkaraekthalin and S. Gao, “A Review of Antennas for Pico-Satellite Applications,” International Journal of Antennas and Propagation, pp. 1 – 17, April 2017.
Future work includes the more complete integration of the developed antennas with the picosatellite platform for dual-mode operation. Basically such that an antenna and solar panel can be fully integrated within the picosatellite bus.
The research within WP2 has led to the demonstration of various antenna designs for beam steering and application to satellite connectivity. Various polarization configurations were also examined. Operational frequencies are for the millimetre-wave range whilst exploiting leaky-wave and surface-wave electromagnetic principles for improved performance when compared to more conventional design approaches. As a result of this work, the fellow was also granted a European Microwave Prize. These efforts resulted in more than 5 peer reviewed journal and papers presented at international conferences:
- S.K. Podilchak, et al., “Analysis and Design of a Compact Leaky-wave Antenna for Wide-band Broadside Radiation,” Nature, Scientific Reports, Article Number: 17741, (2018).
- S.K. Podilchak, et al., "Design of a Polarization-Diverse Planar Leaky-Wave Antenna for Broadside Radiation," in IEEE Access, vol. 7, pp. 28672-28683, 2019.
- S.K. Podilchak, et al., "Analysis and Design of a Circularly-Polarized Planar Leaky-Wave Antenna," 2018 IEEE International Symposium on Antennas and Propagation & USNC/URSI National Radio Science Meeting, Boston, MA, 2018, pp. 2133-2134.
- S.K. Podilchak, et al., “Planar Antenna Design for Omnidirectional Conical Radiation through Cylindrical Leaky Waves," IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters, vol. 17, no. 10, pp. 1837-1841, 2018.
- S.K. Podilchak, et al., “Microwave Generation of X-waves by Means of a Planar Leaky-Wave Antenna," Applied Physics Letters, vol. 113, 144102 (2018).
- S.K. Podilchak et al., "Radially Periodic Leaky-Wave Antenna for Bessel Beam Generation Over a Wide-Frequency Range," in IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, vol. 66, no. 6, pp. 2828-2843, June 2018.
- V.G. Buendía and S.K. Podilchak, “Simple Surface-Wave Launching by Parallel-Plate and Microstrip Feeding for Leaky-Wave Antennas and Other Planar Guided-Wave Applications,” EuCAP 2018, London, UK, Apr. 2018.
- S. K. Podilchak, et al., “A Dual-Layer Leaky-Wave Antenna Designed for Linear Scanning Through Broadside,” IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters, vol. 16, 2017.
The next step towards further exploitation of these results includes securing the necessary funding to continue the research work, identify market opportunities within the space sector, submitting additional proposals for further funding.