This work presents an antenna for operation at 2.4 GHz that combines two Planar Inverted-F Antennas (PIFA) in a crossed configuration with a feeding port in the center and two shorting pins to tune the central frequency. The antenna is to be integrated into the next version of ORCASat, a two-unit CubeSat developed by the collaboration of students from the University of Victoria, the University of British Columbia, and the University of Lisbon.
This novel antenna design offers a linear polarization omnidirectional radiation pattern identical to the one of a dipole antenna, but in a flat form factor, and without resorting to a deployment system. Thus, the antenna eliminates deployment associated risks and complexities. When mounted on the satellite square face, the antenna radiation pattern allows communication with Earth for every orientation of the satellite, making this design attractive to cope also with the initial thumbling phase.