Circularly polarised broadband planar lightweight reflectarray with eligible pattern for satellite communications in Ku-Band

摘要

This study presents a lightweight planar patch-array reflectarray at Ku-band for satellite communications. The reflectarray is composed of two separate planar structures: the radiating interface formed by a planar multi-layered broadband patch array, and a phase shifting device formed by 3 dB/90° couplers. The radiating element is a multi-layered patch structure, designed to provide circular polarisation (CP). Each array cell phase is controlled by open-ended shifting lines of variable length connected to the 3 dB/90° couplers. The use of this kind of couplers maintains the same CP received/transmitted: the design imposes that if a right-hand CP (RHCP) [or left-hand CP (LHCP)] is received coming from the feeder, the same RHCP (or LHCP) configuration is re-radiated by the reflectarray. Additionally, the feeding horn can be moved in the x or y axes, so that the feeder angular position let re-define the radiation pattern and its pointing direction. Finally, measurements of a lightweight portable planar reflectarray prototype are provided and very good agreement is observed when compared with theoretical results