Feasibility analysis of additive manufacturing method for graphene based super solar body mounted patch antenna for satellite applications

• DOI: 10.1007/s42452-020-2393-0
• Publication Date: 2020-03-10T13:03:07Z
• Authors: Prasanna Ram; Rachel Jeeva Ligh...; Rashika Chithoor ...; Jahnavi Nancheri; Monika Gayathri O...
• Keywords: Patch antenna; UMTS frequency bands; Communications satellite; Return loss

In this project, a Nano material based printed patch antenna structure has been integrated with a solar panel without affecting the optical efficiency of the solar panel. The proposed prototype is having the property of both antenna and solar module functionality. A graphene based CPW fed E-Shaped micro strip patch antenna which has a return loss of − 48.43 dB at resonant frequency of 2.1 GHz which is best suitable for UMTS-2100 Band (2.15–2.18 GHz), GSM (2.15–2.18 GHz) applications is printed on the solar panel using screen printing technique. In this project, conventional copper-based antennas are replaced with graphene-based antennas due to various advantages. In this experiment, the feasibility of material based body mounting antenna structure printing method is analysed. This proposed design model is best suitable for satellites where antennas occupy one-third of the satellite’s size. By mounting the small printed antennas on the solar panel, the space complexity of the satellite system gets reduced by one-third of its initial dimensions.