A novel Ku/K band reflectarray antenna with reduced phase slope and phase sensitivity

摘要

The design, development, fabrication, and testing of a wideband reflectarrayantenna with a novel concentric ring element operating over Ku/K band frequenciesis presented in this paper. The element characterization is performedusing the infinite array approach and is inferred that the proposed unit celloffers a higher phase variation of 643 by changing the size of the concentricrings. The proposed reflectarray antenna has a circular geometry and is constructedusing 437 elements with an element separation of 0.43λ_0. The proposedreflectarray offers a 3 dB gain bandwidth of 35% (15–21 GHz). Theaperture efficiency is estimated to be 58.78% at 16.5 GHz. The prototype reflectarrayis fabricated and tested to validate the simulation results. The measuredpeak gain of the reflectarray is 28.4 dBi with a side lobe level of −17.6 dB. Themeasured cross-polarization level is less than −32 dB. Furthermore, it isinferred that the proposed unit cell has a reduced maximum phase sensitivityof 246/mm with a gain selectivity of 6 dB at the lowest operating frequency.The proposed broadband reflectarray with enhanced performance characteristicsis suitable for application in satellite communication and aeronauticalradio navigation.