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arXiv · 2311.12721

Satellite Swarms for Narrow Beamwidth Applications

Juan A. Vásquez-Peralvo·Juan Carlos Merlano Duncan·Geoffrey Eappen·Symeon Chatzinotas
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Abstract

Satellite swarms have recently gained attention in the space industry due to their ability to provide extremely narrow beamwidths at a lower cost than single satellite systems. This paper proposes a concept for a satellite swarm using a distributed subarray configuration based on a 2D normal probability distribution. The swarm comprises multiple small satellites acting as subarrays of a big aperture array limited by a radius of 20000 wavelengths working at a central frequency of 19 GHz. The main advantage of this approach is that the distributed subarrays can provide extremely directive beams and beamforming capabilities that are not possible using a conventional antenna and satellite design. The proposed swarm concept is analyzed, and the simulation results show that the radiation pattern achieves a beamwidth as narrow as 0.0015-degrees with a maximum side lobe level of 18.8 dB and a grating lobe level of 14.8 dB. This concept can be used for high data rates applications or emergency systems.

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BibTeXRIS

Juan A. Vásquez-Peralvo, Juan Carlos Merlano Duncan, Geoffrey Eappen, Symeon Chatzinotas. 2023-11-21. Satellite Swarms for Narrow Beamwidth Applications. https://arxiv.org/abs/2311.12721

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