Multibeam Antennas with Reflector for High Throughput Satellite Applications

Telecommunication satellites have been developing toward broadband and high throughput systems. Compared with conventional telecommunication satellites, high throughput satellites (HTSs) have been able to provide broadband system capacity with the maximum value exceeding 200 Gbit/second, and are more cost-effective with less expense per bit/second. To satisfy the demand of HTS, multibeam antennas with narrow beams and frequency or polarization reuse scheme will be applied. This article reviews the derivation of multibeam antennas on satellites and the principle of obtaining beams with various beamwidth. This article describes single feed per beam and multiple feeds per beam schemes with various number of reflectors. Some multibeam HTS missions over the past two decades are listed and presented. New technologies about HTS are presented.