A Low-Cost Metal-Only Reflectarray Using Modified Slot-Type Phoenix Element With 360° Phase Coverage

• Published in: IEEE transactions on antennas and propagation Vol. 64; no. 4; pp. 1556 - 1560
• Main Authors: Deng, Ruyuan, Yang, Fan, Xu, Shenheng, Li, Maokun
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York IEEE 01-04-2016; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Antenna; Apertures; Fabrication; Gain; low-cost; metal-only; Microstrip; Phoenix element; reflectarray; Reflection; Reflector antennas; Steel; metal only; reflectarray; phoenix element; low cost; Antenna; gain
• ISSN: 0018-926X; 1558-2221
• DOI: 10.1109/TAP.2016.2526258

A novel slot-type phoenix element is proposed for low-cost metal-only reflectarray designs. Due to its unique rebirth capability, a full 360° phase coverage is obtained by the proposed phasing element, which can effectively resolve the phase range limitation commonly seen in slot-type metal-only reflectarray elements. A Ku-band offset-fed reflectarray prototype with a circular aperture of 516 mm in diameter is designed, fabricated, and tested for verification. The measured gain is 33.9 dBi at 12.5 GHz with the aperture efficiency of 53.8%, and the 1-dB gain bandwidth is 12.8%. The proposed metal-only reflectarray achieves good radiation performance and is suitable for high-gain antenna applications with stringent requirements on cost and/or working environment.