Phased Array GNSS Antenna for the FORMOSAT-7/COSMIC-2 Radio Occultation Mission

Dmitry Turbiner, Larry E. Young, Tom K. Meehan

Abstract:	Future GNSS remote sensing instruments such as the TriG receiver require more capable antennas than those flown on missions such as COSMIC. To maximize the number of ionospheric and atmospheric profiles, the TriG receiver will be capable of tracking legacy and new GPS signals such as L5, L2C and L1C; GLONASS CDMA and Galileo E1 and E5a. There has been an in-house effort at JPL to develop a set of antennas that would provide excellent Radio Occultations performance as well as navigation and ionospheric profiling. This effort is on-going but near completion for the manufacture and delivery of a set of flight antennas for the FORMOSAT-7/COSMIC-2 mission. We will present aspects of the design and performance figures of an electronically steerable 12-element phased array to accompany the TriG instrument on COSMIC-2, the next RO mission. We will discuss specific features that help ensure the maximum scientific return. In particular, we designed custom helical elements and a low-loss broadband combiner networks. Also, each individual element is electrically phased in a way that synthesizes a final directivity pattern whose peak gains are distributed along the limb of the Earth. According to HFSS simulations, we anticipate a realized peak gain of 18dBic and 16dBic at GPS L1 and L2/L5 respectively. This gain drops by 6dB at 55 degree azimuth.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 25th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GNSS 2012) September 17 - 21, 2012 Nashville Convention Center, Nashville, Tennessee Nashville, TN
Pages:	915 - 916
Cite this article:	Turbiner, Dmitry, Young, Larry E., Meehan, Tom K., "Phased Array GNSS Antenna for the FORMOSAT-7/COSMIC-2 Radio Occultation Mission," Proceedings of the 25th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GNSS 2012), Nashville, TN, September 2012, pp. 915-916.
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