To date, CubeSat radars and imagers have been limited to operations beyond S-band due to the challenges associated with the design of wideband, compact, low-frequency antennas. Concurrently, the frequencies at VHF/UHF bands can image through clouds and foliage, and are very attractive for ice, water and biomass sensing. There is thus a need to develop wideband antennas that can operate at VHF/UHF bands which are low cost, light-weight, and packable. In this paper, we present a CubeSat deployable Tightly Coupled Dipole Array (TCDA) that achieves VSWR<3 from 80 MHz – 600 MHz, and VSWR<4 from 65 MHz – 600 MHz. While the array itself is 1.2 m in length, 10 cm in width and 1.5 mm in thickness, it can be folded and stowed in a compact volume of 0.40U. We detail the design of the array, demonstrate the folding mechanism, and validate its performance through measurements.

中文翻译：

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用于立方体卫星的 VHF/UHF 超宽带紧耦合偶极子阵列

迄今为止，由于与宽带、紧凑、低频天线设计相关的挑战，CubeSat 雷达和成像仪仅限于 S 波段以外的操作。同时，VHF/UHF 频段的频率可以穿透云层和树叶成像，对冰、水和生物量传感非常有吸引力。因此，需要开发能够在 VHF/UHF 频段运行的宽带天线，这些天线成本低、重量轻且可封装。在本文中，我们提出了一个 CubeSat 可部署紧耦合偶极子阵列 (TCDA)，它在 80 MHz – 600 MHz 内实现 VSWR<3，在 65 MHz – 600 MHz 内实现 VSWR<4。虽然阵列本身长 1.2 m，宽 10 cm，厚 1.5 mm，但它可以折叠并存放在 0.40U 的紧凑体积中。我们详细介绍了阵列的设计，演示了折叠机制，