Integration of one dimentional wire grid antennas with solar cells for LEO satellite application

Abstract

In this paper, integration of one dimensional wire grid antennas and solar cells are investigated. In such a structure, solar cells are centered inside wire grid loops. Due to characteristics of wire grid antennas, we are able to minimize antenna shading on the solar cells to a negligible level while keeping the antenna efficiency within an acceptable range. First, a one dimensional wire grid antenna in 2.2 GHz is designed alone and then is integrated with GaAs solar cells for two cases of 4-cell and 6-cell grid arrays. The final 6-cell integrated antenna has almost 14.6 dB of gain while keeping the simulated efficiency at 75.1%.