A Printed Quadrifilar-Helical Antenna for Ku-Band Mobile Satellite Communication Terminal

A printed quadrifilar-helical antenna for potential use in the mobile terminal of the satellite communication system is designed in this paper, the antenna combines the qualities of miniaturization, high gain, wide beam and wide angle circular polarization. The relative band-width is 8%, which enables the antenna to meet the requirements of multiple Ku-band satellite communication systems. The polarization purity is high, which restrains the ground clutter effectively. The radiation patterns show a regular hemisphere shape, making the antenna suitable for receiving satellite communication signals in a plurality of mobile platforms, such as the ship, the vehicle, the aircraft and the handset receivers. A compact designed Wilkinson power divider is employed as the feeding network of the antenna. The relations between the winding direction and the current phase stepping direction are given. Furthermore, the impacts of current amplitude error and phase error are comparatively analyzed. A good agreement is observed between simulated and measured results within the operating band. Through the integrated optimal design of the structure and material, the "three-proof" quality is achieved without any degradation to the radiation properties of the antenna.