Grad student develops antenna to improve communication with Mars rover

Jean Paul Santos spent nine months designing and building a lightweight antenna he could hold in his hand.

Although the thin, computer chip-like device is smaller than an iPhone, the antenna has the potential to improve interplanetary communication between Mars and Earth.

Santos, a graduate student in electrical engineering, constructed the device for a rover that will launch for Mars in 2020, hoping it would be used to transmit data to Earth from a world 140 million miles away.

“The idea that there’s something beyond earth is always exciting to me,” Santos said about his childhood desire to study space. “I believe engineering is a vocation where you create devices for the betterment of humanity.”

Santos and two colleagues from UCLA’s Antenna Research, Analysis and Measurement Laboratory finished the antenna with funding from NASA. Now, the team is searching for funding and is actively preparing the research for publication. In July, Santos became a student paper finalist at an antenna technology conference after submitting a writeup on the project.

Two years ago, NASA asked national universities to help it design and build an antenna that would enable a direct connection, or augmented link, between a Mars rover and Earth. Schools nationwide submitted proposals on how they would proceed. In September 2013, NASA selected UCLA’s design for takeoff.

NASA engineers already use direct communication to send operational commands to rovers on Mars, said Neil Chamberlain, a senior engineer from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, or JPL, who assisted the team with the project. However, current antennas are not strong enough to transmit quality photographs and data directly to Earth, because the signals must first travel through orbiting satellites in space, which act as the “middle men” in rover communication.

Each satellite currently costs NASA about $700 million. A small, successful, direct-link antenna would eliminate the need for satellites and save space on the rover.

The team designed the prototype as a backup communications system for the future mission Mars 2020, which would deploy a rover on the red planet to assess the possibility of life there. They completed the prototype in September 2014.

“From our understanding, this hasn’t been done before,” said Santos, an aspiring antenna engineer.

The team wanted to create an antenna that would be compact but at the same time be able to meet the requirements for the Mars rover, he said.

In case a satellite would not be in place by the time Mars 2020 launched, JPL offered grants to the team that could create this backup plan.

At the time of the proposal, the UCLA team included Yahya Rahmat-Samii, a distinguished professor in the electrical engineering department and Joshua Kovitz, a graduate student in electrical engineering. Santos joined the team in January 2014.

Over the course of the project, Santos said he gravitated into the lead role. While he analyzed the intricacies of the design’s antenna, Kovitz and Rahmat-Samii acted as supervisors and checkers.

The device had to be light and compact, run on the same number of watts as a bright incandescent lightbulb and be able to be repositioned using a robotically operated arm.

The final prototype consists of individual antenna units – pieces shaped like half-Es. The units, constructed of copper and composite glass and ceramics, enable the antenna to transmit and receive radio signals designed to reduce the effect of particles they encounter through atmospheric travel.

Chamberlain monitored the team biweekly until the prototype was completed in September 2014.

The partnership with JPL ended then, but Santos said the antenna they designed can be scaled to scan different radio frequencies. The team wants to build a full-size antenna model once they receive funding, he said. As they wait, the team members are constantly verifying lab results by trying to match experimental results with results obtained from simulations.

Bill Kisliuk, a spokesperson for the Henry Samueli School of Engineering, said UCLA has long and strong ties with NASA, especially with JPL in Pasadena.

“This relationship creates unmatched opportunities for our faculty and students to contribute to the quest for knowledge about the solar system, and allows NASA to utilize the expertise available at UCLA,” Kisliuk said.

Santos, who currently receives a fellowship from the Department of Defense, is committed to working with the Navy each summer designing antennas for scientific applications with the funding.

“There’s so many things with antennas you can do with space, with Mars rovers or with the military enabling soldiers to … track their health wirelessly,” Santos said. “(Those) are the devices I can develop to help people.”