This thesis work presents the feasibility of integrating meshed patch antennas directly onto the solar cell assembly to save valuable surface real estate of a small satellite. The solar cell cover glass is used as the substrate for the patch antenna. The antenna topology is chosen to be a meshed patch so that it is transparent to light to ensure the proper operation of solar cells. We found that although there is a compromise between the antenna efficiency and see-through percentage, one is able to optimize the antenna by carefully designing the mesh. To verify the design and integration, a meshed antenna operating at around 2.3 GHz is printed with conductive ink on a plastic substrate and placed on-top of solar cells attached to an aluminum ground plane. The printed solar cell antenna is measured with Nearfield Systems Inc. spherical near-field range and the measurements agree well with the design.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UTAHS/oai:digitalcommons.usu.edu:etd-1238 |
| Date | 01 May 2009 |
| Creators | Turpin, Timothy W. |
| Publisher | DigitalCommons@USU |
| Source Sets | Utah State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | All Graduate Theses and Dissertations |
| Rights | Copyright for this work is held by the author. Transmission or reproduction of materials protected by copyright beyond that allowed by fair use requires the written permission of the copyright owners. Works not in the public domain cannot be commercially exploited without permission of the copyright owner. Responsibility for any use rests exclusively with the user. For more information contact Andrew Wesolek (andrew.wesolek@usu.edu). |
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