High-Efficiency Polarizer Reflectarray Antennas for Data Transmission Links from a CubeSat

Abstract

This paper presents two designs of high-efficiency polarizer reflectarray antennas able to generate a collimated beam in dual-circular polarization using a linearly polarized feed, with application to high-gain antennas for data transmission links from a Cubesat. First, an 18 cm × 18 cm polarizer reflectarray operating in the 17.2–22.7 GHz band has been designed, fabricated, and tested. The measurements of the prototype show an aperture efficiency of 52.7% for right-handed circular polarization (RHCP) and 57.3% for left-handed circular polarization (LHCP), both values higher than those previously reported in related works. Then, a dual-band polarizer reflectarray is presented for the first time, which operates in dual-CP in the frequency bands of 20 GHz and 30 GHz. The proposed antenna technology enables a reduction of the complexity and cost of the feed chain to operate in dual-CP, as a linear-to-circular polarizer is no longer required. This property, combined with the lightweight, flat profile and low fabrication cost of printed reflectarrays, makes the proposed antennas good candidates for Cubesat applications.

Wideband Reflectarrays for 5G/6G: A Survey

“…Furthermore, an air gap was used between the dielectric layer and the ground plane to smooth the reflection phase response of the unit cell and achieve a 360° phase response in both frequencies and polarizations. Rectangular stacked patches have also been employed as unit cells to design dual CP RAs as presented by [104]. The unit cell is shown in Fig.…”

“…Among the two design choices, the complexity in designing and fabricating dual CP feeds is higher as compared to dual LP ones [73]. However, dual CP operation can be achieved by using a dual LP feed oriented 45° diagonally to the unit cell axis as indicated by [73] and [104]. To achieve dual LP using a dual LP feed in a single frequency band, the RA element geometry needs to handle simultaneously the phase delay across the x-and the y-direction controlling X-and Ypolarized reflection in the same frequency band, respectively.…”

“…However, it is important to note that the subwavelength periodicity is the most flexible approach as it can be easily integrated with other approaches such as the element rotation, the multi resonance or phase delay lines to yield superior gain bandwidth characteristics as it will be discussed in subsection F. In this approach the majority of the designs operate in X-band [73], [93], [96], [97], [98], [99], [101], [102]. There are one K-band designs [104], three Kuband wideband RAs [95,108], [100], one dual band RA at X/K-band [70] and two Ka-band designs [92], [94] while there are two tightly coupled RAs that operate in C-band and Xband, e.g., [107] and [105]. Different lattice periodicity can be observed from Table II such as 𝜆/3, 𝜆/4, 𝜆/5 and 𝜆/6.…”

“…From the RAs in Table II, the design in [73] and [104] can achieve dual CP when illuminated by dual LP feed. The dual LP feed is either placed at +45° or -45° slant in respect to the unit cell axis to generate either a RHCP or LHCP beam, respectively.…”

A Hybrid Antenna with Equal Beamwidth in Two Frequency Bands for Radar Applications

“…According to the radiation gain level, the related dual-band antennas are categorized into three types, namely high gain, medium gain, and low gain antennas. Parabolic reflector and reflectarray are widely used in high gain design [8][9][10]. In medium-gain antenna design, the available radiators are rich, including horn, dielectric rod antenna, patch array, and their combinations [11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19].…”