Title :
Design and Experiment of a Single-Feed Quad-Beam Reflectarray Antenna
Author :
Nayeri, Payam ; Fan Yang ; Elsherbeni, Atef Z.
Author_Institution :
Electr. Eng. Dept., Univ. of Mississippi, Oxford, MS, USA
Abstract :
Reflectarray antennas show momentous promise as a cost-effective high-gain antenna, capable of generating multiple simultaneous beams. A systematic study on various design methods of single-feed multi-beam reflectarray antennas is presented in this communication. Two direct design methods for multi-beam reflectarrays, geometrical method and superposition method, are investigated first. It is demonstrated that although both methods could generate a multi-beam radiation pattern, neither approach provides satisfactory performance, mainly due to high side-lobe levels and gain loss in these designs. The alternating projection method is then implemented to optimize the phase distribution on the reflectarray surface for multi-beam performance. Mask definition and convergence condition of the optimization are studied for multi-beam reflectarray designs. Finally a Ka-band reflectarray prototype is fabricated and tested which shows a good quad-beam performance.
Keywords :
antenna feeds; antenna radiation patterns; microwave antenna arrays; reflectarray antennas; Ka-band reflectarray prototype; cost-effective high-gain antenna; geometrical method; multi-beam radiation pattern; multi-beam reflectarrays; multiple simultaneous beams generation; single-feed quad-beam reflectarray antenna; superposition method; Antenna measurements; Antenna radiation patterns; Apertures; Arrays; Feeds; Optimization; Reflector antennas; Alternating projection method; intersection approach; multi-beam; optimization; reflectarray;
Journal_Title :
Antennas and Propagation, IEEE Transactions on
DOI :
10.1109/TAP.2011.2173126