Metamaterial array based meander line planar antenna for cube satellite communication

Abstract This research article presents a design and performance analysis of a metamaterial inspired ultra-high frequency (UHF) compact planar patch antenna for the CubeSat communication system that could be smoothly integrated with commercially available 2U Cube Satellite structure and onboard subsystem. The proposed antenna consists of two layers, one is two different width meander line antenna patch with partial ground plane and another layer is 3 × 2 near-zero-indexed metamaterial (NZIM) metamaterial array structure with ground plane. The NZIM array layer has been utilized to minimize the coupling effect with Cube Satellite structure and improve the frequency stability with enhanced antenna gain and efficiency. The fabricated antenna can operate within the lower UHF frequency band of 443.5–455 MHz. with an…