A Metal-Only Reflectarray Antenna Using Slot-Type Elements

Author

Wenxing An ; Shenheng Xu ; Fan Yang

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electron. Eng., Tsinghua Univ., Beijing, China

Volume

13

fYear

2014

fDate

2014

Firstpage

1553

Lastpage

1556

Abstract

A novel metal-only reflectarray antenna is proposed in this letter. By using a unique unified slot structure, the dielectric substrate commonly applied in conventional reflectarray antennas can be avoided. Various slot elements are investigated, and a prototype reflectarray antenna working at 12.5 GHz is studied for experimental verification. The simulation and measurement results show that good radiation characteristics are achieved by the proposed design. The measured gain is 32.5 dB with 1-dB gain bandwidth of 8.3%, which is comparable to reflectarrays consisting of conventional patch elements. The metal-only structure provides an innovative reflectarray configuration to better withstand the extreme outer space environment and effectively reduce the antenna cost.

Keywords

antenna radiation patterns; dielectric waveguides; microstrip antenna arrays; microwave antenna arrays; reflectarray antennas; slot antenna arrays; substrate integrated waveguides; antenna cost reduction; dielectric substrate; frequency 12.5 GHz; gain 1 dB; gain 32.5 dB; metal-only reflectarray antenna; patch elements; radiation characteristics; slot-type elements; unified slot structure; Antenna measurements; Dielectric substrates; Gain; Gain measurement; Prototypes; Reflector antennas; Low cost; metal-only; reflectarray; slot element;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters, IEEE

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1536-1225

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/LAWP.2014.2342376

Filename

6862837