An All-Metallic Reflectarray and Its Element Design: Exploring the Radiation Characteristics of Antennas for Directional Beam Applications

摘要

This article presents an investigation into the radiation characteristics of broadband, all-metallic reflectarray antennas with nonresonant convex elements for directional beam applications. The metallic reflecting elements demonstrate advantages over conventional elements that are realized on printed circuit board (PCB)-type dielectric substrates because of the superiority in energy efficiency of these metal elements. The use of the metallic elements results in more radiation power to compensate for the energy loss that occurs during propagation in air. These radiation characteristics cause the antennas to radiate a broader beam with a smaller physical size and with the same gain achievement as that of a PCB-based antenna, resulting in better coverage.