Design and prototype of a flight microstrip antennas for the Pico satellite ERPSat-1

Abstract

Small satellites, accomplished by new technologies, allowed the achievement of many tasks and experiments in space. In this context, Pico satellites team of Research Group on Intelligent Machines laboratory of the engineering school of Sfax, Tunisia, has designed and prototyped Microstrip antennas for the first Tunisian Pico satellite ERPSat-1 use. Its resonant frequency is 2.4 GHz. The various losses like atmospheric, free space, Ionosphere and rain losses are taken in consideration. Atmospheric and free space losses vary in accordance with the distance between the Pico satellite ERPSat1 and the ground antenna. During simulations, the changes of the earth antenna which are based on elevation angle, pointing and polarization losses should be taken in consideration. The obtained Microstrip antennas will be used for inter Picosatellites and their ground stations communication. In this paper, we present the design of the ERPSat-1 Microstrip antennas, the results and the limits of the used models to prove their use for space communications. As a first step, these Microstrip antennas will be used in remote sensing system for data transmission from camera to the FPGA platform developed in REGIM laboratory of Sfax University.