L-band Plasma Turnstile Antenna for GPS applications

This work presents the preliminary results of a crossed dipole antenna that works in the L-band and that exploits plasma technology to generate and receive a circularly polarized electromagnetic field. The study considered in a first stage a simplified plasma crossed dipole and successively it included a more realistic design that comprises the plasma generation equipment, more realistic glass vessels and the electrodes used to generate the plasma. The simplified design can achieve good results in terms of axial ratio (i.e., circular polarization), directivity, and input impedance if compared to its metallic counterpart. However, when the more realistic antenna is considered, a down-shift in the operation frequency can be observed. Furthermore, the influence of the plasma parameters on the antenna parameters has been analyzed. All the results have been obtained through full-wave numerical simulations in CST Microwave Studio.