Design and Optimization of a Mechanically Reconfigurable Reflectarray Antenna with Pixel Patch Elements Using Genetic Algorithm

摘要

A novel mechanically reconfigurable reflectarray antenna (RRA) at L band is proposed. The element is composed of a fixed upper pixel patch, a middle pixel patch with tunable height, and the ground. Both pixel patches are optimized using Genetic Algorithm (GA) to achieve smooth phasing performance and low magnitude loss. With the height of the middle patch varying within 7 mm (0.034 λ0), a phase coverage of 367° is obtained. And the reflection magnitude loss of the element is less than 0.18 dB for all case. Full-wave simulation demonstrates that a RRA with 1.8-m square aperture has a broadside gain of 26.7 dBi, with corresponding aperture efficiency of 48%. The two-dimensional beam scanning range covers ±60°, and the scan gain loss for the 60° beam is 4.0 dB.