UT Professor's invention recognized by USA patent

The communication and broadcasting systems receive/transmit information in a form of signal from a satellite. Conventional systems use many types of antennas or antenna reflectors such as dish antennas and Rotman lenses, to transmit/receive signal in the form of electromagnetic waves from the satellite.

The existing antenna reflectors are divided into two main groups namely, metallic antennas and composite antennas. The metallic antennas are made of metallic materials or conductive materials, which are widely used in satellite communication based on their electromagnetic reflecting property.

The metallic antenna is quite heavy and it either requires facilities for positioning in ground stations or it results in a considerable reduction in the payload for space stations. Moreover, the metallic materials transmit/receive the electromagnetic waves regardless of the frequency range. Hence, the metallic antennas are susceptible to cause electromagnetic interference, especially for satellite broadcasting.

Thus, the composite antenna with low weight is designed as a next generation antenna using polymeric composite materials, which significantly reduces the weight of the antenna. Despite the considerable weight reduction in the structure of the polymeric composite antenna when compared to the metallic antenna, the polymeric composites are intrinsically categorized under the electromagnetically insulated materials.

Dr. Rafiee, an associate professor of University of Tehran and head of Composites Research Laboratory (https://comreslab.ut.ac.ir) has recently registered an US patent on nanocomposite coating for antenna reflector (US010975249B1).

The present invention discloses a nano-composite coating by incorporating graphene nano-particles into an epoxy resin for the purpose of Ku frequency band. Proper weight fraction of graphene nano-particles and appropriate dispersion procedure into the resin and other effective parameters are extracted assuring proper performance of the invented coating system from electromagnetic view point. Then, the required thickness of the coating system which is required to be applied to the top surface of the composite reflectors is identified.

Link:

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PTXT&s1=rafiee.AANM.&OS=AANM/rafiee&RS=AANM/rafiee