Tunable Reflectarray Cell for Wide Angle Beam-Steering Radar Applications

Abstract EN

An electronically tunable reflectarray element is proposed in this work to design beam-steering antennas useful for radar applications.

A reduced size reflectarray unit cell is properly synthesized in order to extend the antenna beam scanning capabilities within a wider angular region.

The radiating structure is accurately optimized to provide a full phase tuning range by adopting a single varactor load as phase shifter element.

A 0.46λ-reflectarray cell is designed at the frequency of 11.5 GHz, obtaining a phase agility of about 330°.

The cell is successfully adopted for the design of a 21 × 21 reconfigurable reflectarray.

The antenna is numerically tested for different configurations of the varactors capacitance values, and good beam-steering performances are demonstrated within a wide angular range.