Design and Manufacturing of a Low-Profile Coaxial-to-Dual Ridge

Waveguide Adapter for CubeSat Reflectarray Antenna Systems

Mustafa Murat Bilgic, Tonny Rubæk, Oscar Borries, Min Zhou
TICRA, Copenhagen, 1117, Denmark
Abstract — This work presents the design and manufacturing
of a low-profile coaxial-to-dual ridge waveguide adapter
operating in the X band from 8.025 GHz to 8.4 GHz. The adapter
will connect the feed of the antenna system to the RF front-end.
The antenna system is a polarizing reflectarray that has been
designed as a downlink antenna for 6U CubeSat platforms. The
tolerances necessary for the mechanical design were determined
based on a detailed uncertainty quantification analysis such that
the complete feed performance has minimal degradation against
manufacturing tolerances. Measurement results are presented
for comparison with the uncertainty quantification analysis.
Index Terms — Uncertainty quantification, coaxial to
waveguide adapters, reflectarray antennas, CubeSat antennas,
waveguide components, antenna sub-systems.

I. INTRODUCTION
CubeSats are promising candidates for a variety of space
missions, due to their relatively low cost and short
development times. However, the limited space available in a
CubeSat makes it challenging to embark high-gain antennas
on the platform. Such high-gain antennas are required for
high-speed communication links and for microwave
Fig. 1. Realized X-band polarizing reflectarray antenna system
instruments requiring a narrow beamwidth, e.g., radiometers
designed for 6U CubeSat platforms.
and radars. The antenna solutions available today are typically
based on deployable reflector technology, e.g. [1], but this type
This paper is organized as the following. In Section II we
of antenna will typically occupy 1-2 units of area to allow it to
provide a short overview of the polarizing reflectarray antenna
be stowed during launch.
system, which will be followed by a section describing the
The use of a planar reflectarray has been demonstrated in
preliminary design of the low-profile coaxial-to-DRWG
space, where a narrow-band high-gain X-band antenna was
adapter in Section III. In Section IV, we cover the mechanical
used to achieve data downlink from Mars [2]. The use of a
design of the adapter. The mechanical design is based on
planar reflectarray is also considered for future ESA missions,
building a realizable mechanical model and running EM
e.g. [3] and [4]. The main goal in the design of an antenna
analysis to verify that the adapter will still meet the required
system suitable for these missions was to have a high-gain
performance. This is done by applying uncertainty
antenna that left the internal volume of the CubeSat fully
quantification to the feed model using the commercially
useable for the mission payload.
available UQ software product in TICRA Tools [8].
An antenna system capable of satisfying the requirements
Finally, measurements of the reflection coefficient of the
defined by ESA for the two missions [3], [4] has been designed
realized feed will be presented and compared with the outputs
and reported in [5] – [7], the antenna system on a 6U CubeSat
of the uncertainty quantification.
platform can be seen in Fig. 1. In the first phases of the design,
the antenna system and its feed have been designed to have an
extremely low profile when stored, leaving the CubeSat inner II. OVERVIEW OF THE POLARIZING REFLECTARRAY ANTENNA
volume empty. However, the output of the feed was connected SYSTEM
to a standard coaxial-to-dual ridge waveguide (DRWG)
The reflectarray antenna system is a compact deployable
adapter during verification measurements of the antenna
reflectarray antenna operating in circular polarization (CP). It
system. This standard adapter had a high profile of 26.5 mm
employs using three individual panels which measure
which protruded into the valuable volume inside the CubeSat. approximately 33 x 20 cm2 each. Each panel is realized as a
To complete the antenna system, a low-profile coaxial-to- symmetric sandwich structure with Rogers 4003C dielectric
DRWG adapter is needed. surrounding a fibre glass core. Fig 2. – 3. shows the stowed
antenna system together with the deployment sequence.
The reflectarray antenna [5], where one combines uses of a
polarizing reflectarray with a compact all-metallic feeding
structure. The feeding structure provides [5] an incoming the primary feed is sufficiently compact for fitting into an
linearly polarized (LP) field, which is then converted by the existing recess in a standard CubeSat frame with no need for
reflectarray into a CP and highly focused beam in the far field. structural changes. The antenna provides a gain of
This concept allows the feed to be significantly simplified approximately 29 dBi and the return loss at the waveguide port
when compared to classic reflectarrays that requires a CP feed is better than 15 dB over the frequency range 8.025 GHz - 8.4
to provide a CP beam from the reflectarray. Fig 4. shows the GHz, which covers the entire Earth observation downlink
reflectarray panels together with the PCB stack-up and band. The complete antenna system shown in Fig. 3., has been
geometry of the crossed-dipole unit cell. modelled and optimised using TICRA Tools [8]. Further
The feed proposed here is based on a planar all-metallic details regarding measurements and comparison to simulation
cavity antenna which is flush mounted on the CubeSat body, results can be found in [6] - [7].
implying that the RF connector is located inside the spacecraft
and that the primary feed element does not need to deploy. The
feed model is shown in Fig. 5.

Fig. 2. CAD model of deployed antenna system.

Fig. 4. Reflectarray antenna system model and periodic unit cell.

Fig. 5. Feed model of the cavity backed radiating slot antenna with
planar subreflector.

III. DESIGN OF A LOW-PROFILE COAXIAL-TO-DUAL RIDGE

WAVEGUIDE ADAPTER
This section will describe the preliminary design of the low-
profile coaxial-to-DRWG adapter. The basic block diagram
for the proposed adapter is shown in Fig.6. The main goal of
the adapter is to have a reflection coefficient less than -15 dB,
Fig. 2. Antenna system deployment sequence.
and the adapter is desired to be all-metallic to reduce the
The radiation from the primary feed cavity is reoriented losses. The adapter is built up of two 3-port power dividers,
towards the reflectarray by a hinged aluminium plate acting as one having a dual ridge waveguide input port and one with a
a small subreflector. The shape of the plate and the dimensions coaxial input port. The output ports of the power dividers have
of the feed cavity have been carefully dimensioned to provide rectangular ports. One of these rectangular ports on each
efficient illumination of the reflectarray while also divider is terminated with short circuit. With the
maintaining a low return loss (>15dB) of the antenna system. implementation of waveguide shorts, the power dividers have
This feeding arrangement is mechanically simple and low- become DRWG/Coaxial – to – rectangular waveguide
loss, due to its all-metallic construction. As a further benefit,
transitions. Then these two transitions are combined through a
mode launcher and impedance matching device.

Fig. 6. Adapter topology block diagram.

The preliminary design steps start by tuning the power

dividers such that input ports have a good impedance match
and the output ports have equal power split; then by adding
short circuit terminations to convert the power dividers to Fig. 8. Preliminary results of the proposed adapter.
waveguide transitions. Then a final tunning is done to the
dimensions of the intermediary transitions. Once the Fig 8. shows the results for the preliminary design. It can be
transitions are retuned, a suitable device which is the so called seen from the results that the preliminary design can satisfy the
“mode launcher and impedance matching section” is added in requirements for the desired low-profile transition.
between the two transitions, creating the complete adapter.
Fig. 7. shows the proposed adapter and Fig 8. shows the IV. MECHANICAL DESIGN AND DETERMINATION OF
preliminary design results. The proposed adapter has two TOLERANCES USING UNCERTAINTY QUANTIFICATION
inputs, one DRWG and a coaxial port. The total height of the
cavity is 3.56 mm. No manufacturing method is capable of producing an item
An adapter that can achieve the specified reflection perfectly to the specified dimensions – there will always be a
coefficient requires the mode launcher section to be deviation, which is known as the tolerance. Setting tolerances
specifically tailored. Gap waveguide structures are promising for critical dimensions will ensure that the manufactured parts
topologies for wideband low profile waveguide devices. The will result in a compliant device.
mode launcher in the proposed adapter uses a gap waveguide A common approach for obtaining these tolerances is to run
mode launcher similar to the one described in [9]. The model some form of uncertainty quantification. However, general
was built and optimized using the software CHAMP 3D methods can be cumbersome to apply to complicated systems.
available in TICRA Tools [8]. The parameters shown in Fig. 6, In TICRA Tools [8], an Uncertainty Quantification (UQ)
together with the height, width, and position of the bed of nails software is available, which allows the user to perform
in the mode launcher, were the main optimization parameters. uncertainty quantification that uses methods based on higher-
order approximations, such as Stochastic Collocation (SC) and
Polynomial Chaos Expansion (PCE). These methods offer a
better convergence rate for a moderate number of parameters
[10] compared to the more commonly used Monte Carlo
analysis.
Before determining the tolerances, we need to modify the
adapter in the preliminary design such that it is suitable for
manufacturing. This is done by rounding all sharp corners and
introducing a tuning screw. The coaxial connector to be used
in the realization will be a standard SMA connector. The main
function for the tuning screw is to compensate for the tolerance
of the coaxial centre pin height. Fig. 9. shows the modified
design combined with the feed. A final optimization is made
to tune the adapter.
Determining the tolerances may not be straight forward.
However, the tighter the tolerances for a mechanical device are
the higher the cost will be. There will also be increasing
difficultly to manufacture. This is where uncertainty
Fig. 7. Proposed adapter. quantification plays an important role. For the sake of
simplicity in understanding how the tolerances affect the
performance, the variables are decoupled, and three separate
uncertainty analyses are performed.
 increase the cost. A trade-off is made between cost and
performance in a way that will affect the system minimally.

Fig. 10. Outputs with uncertainty for UQ1.

Fig. 9. Manufacturing model and input reflection coefficient after

final optimization.

The three analysis groups are defined as follows:

• UQ1-Cavity dimensions: The lengths and widths of the
adapter cavity. (Wt1, Wt2, Lt1, Lt2, Lm1 shown in Fig.
6.)
• UQ2-Bed of nails dimensions in mode launcher:
Position, height, width, and inter-element spacings
between the posts in the mode launcher.
• UQ3-Cavity and coaxial pin heights: The coaxial pin is
not short circuited to the upper wall of the adapter
cavity. The height of this pin and the height of the cavity
are the most sensitive parameters for this device.
The uncertainty quantification analyses performed are all
carried out using the SC method. The adapter is connected to
the feed cavity (shown in Fig. 4.), and the overall performance Fig. 11. Outputs with uncertainty for UQ2.
of the feed assembly based on variations in the input variables
are investigated. The feed has been proven to work as
specified, so no parameters associated with the feed are
included in the analyses. The tunning screw is also kept at its
nominal position and not subject to uncertainty quantification.
The input variables used are assumed to have a uniform
distribution. The output is the uncertainty of the reflection
coefficient at the coaxial port within a confidence interval of
95%. The analyses are carried out for each frequency. A value,
for which there is a 2.5% probability that the reflection
coefficient is below, and another value, for which there is a
2.5% probability that the reflection coefficient is above, will
be returned. The expected value of the reflection coefficient
will also be returned.
For X-band applications, the UQ analyses shows that
±0.1 mm value for UQ1 and UQ2 are suitable, and the worst-
case results still satisfy the -15 dB reflection coefficient
specifications (see Fig. 10. - 11). However, ±0.1 mm is too Fig. 12. Outputs with uncertainty for UQ3.
high for UQ3. The highest tolerance value for cavity and
coaxial pin heights that nearly satisfies the specifications is
±0.03 mm (See Fig. 12.). Reducing the tolerances more would
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Fig. 13. Realized adapter.

Fig. 14. Measured input reflection coefficients and calculated

uncertainty intervals.