Direct Radiating Arrays for Space Telecommunications

Present and, even more, future generation communication satellites must provide downlink and uplink regional or global coverage, for high data rate, multimedia, or mobile personal communication applications. Hence, antennas capable of generating a large number of (possibly steerable) high gain spot beams, using both frequency and polarization reuse, are needed. An attractive answer to these requirements is provided by direct radiant arrays. This lecture presents some of the main results of a research activity carried out (and still going on) at the University of Naples on this subject.