SBIR-STTR Award

The Team will design and develop an antenna design operating at 20, 44, and 60 GHz (K/V) band. We will be basing our new design on a previously successful Phase II SBIR using independently moving metasurface antennas. This new design will take advantage of electronic steering and use multiple apertures sandwiched together. This multiband metasurface antenna can be scaled and adapted to work in tandem with existing antenna structures on the satellite. This antenna will be capable of simultaneous operation at all bands, beam steering, and adjusting coverage area. Most importantly, the entire antenna structure will appear""invisible""at frequencies outside the operating band. Therefore, the antenna can be placed on the satellite with minimal considerations to RFI and RFC. The result will be an antenna that provides an add on upgrade capability to the satellite. We conclude by developing a proof of concept and demonstrating, analytically and with breadboard hardware, the feasibility of meeting the Air Force""s requirements. The team intends to use heavy modeling and simulation for initial investigation of design approaches will initially be used. Small-scale models will eventually be used to demonstrate the proof of concept by implementing single aperture operation at multiple RF bands.

Benefit:
This research effort will yield multiband metasurface antenna that provides an add on upgrade capability to the satellite. This antenna can be used to upgrade the desired platform with minimal considerations to RFI/RFc.

Satellite antenna systems often use separate transmit/ receive (T/R) apertures to prevent co-site interference. This currently increases the satellite antenna payload and requires RF interference and compatibility (RFI/RFC) studies to prevent performance degradation. But an antenna design that appears ?RF invisible? outside of its operating frequency band could be used to upgrade current satellite systems without the need for extensive RFI/RFC analysis. In pursuit of this vision, we propose to prototype and characterize a frequency
selective surface (FSS)-based ?metasurface? antenna. In Phase I, we demonstrated the feasibility of an electromagnetically transparent phased array antenna operating at 20 GHz (down-link), 44 GHz (up-link), and 66 GHz (satellite-to-satellite). For Phase II, we propose to design prototype metasurface antennas operating at 20, 44, and 66 GHz. Working with the Air Force, we will select one of the designs to fabricate and characterize. Our antenna concept is fabricated using a MEMS technique that is able to accurately reproduce features at the highest frequency/shortest wavelength, i.e., 66 GHz.

Benefit:
Our metasurface antenna concept was shown to be capable of operation in all three bands, beam steering, and adjusting coverage area. Most importantly, each antenna structure is ?RF invisible? outside the communication link?s operating frequency band. Therefore, the antenna can be placed on the satellite with minimal consideration of RFI/RFC. The result is an antenna that provides an upgrade capability to the satellite while minimizing integration problems. All manufacturers of communications satellites are potential customers and form the initial addressable market for space-qualified FSS-MM apertures. We also think there may be a market for retrofitting terrestrial terminals to augment their supported frequencies.

Keywords:
Antenna, Metasurface, Frequency Selective Surface, Fss, Aperture, 20 Ghz, 44 Ghz, 66 Ghz