Multioctave Frequency Selective Surface Reflector for Ultrawideband Antennas

In this letter, we demonstrate the gain enhancement of an ultrawideband (UWB) antenna, achieved using an appropriately designed multioctave dual-layer frequency selective surface (FSS) reflector. The proposed novel FSS reflects effectively in phase over a bandwidth of about 120%. Hence, significant enhancement in antenna gain has been achieved with a low-profile configuration without compromising the impedance bandwidth of the UWB antenna. The proposed FSS reflector has a low transmission coefficient and linearly decreasing phase over an ultra-wide frequency band, which is the key requirement for providing an effectively in-phase reflection at the antenna plane. The composite structure is compact, with a total height of λ/4, where λ is the free-space wavelength at the lowest operating frequency of 3 GHz. Experimental results show an impedance bandwidth of 122%. The antenna gain is maintained around 7.5 dBi from 3 to 7 GHz. Between 7-14 GHz, the antenna is more directive with a gain of about 9 dBi with ±0.5 dB variation. Experimental measurements con firm the predicted wideband antenna performance and gain enhancement due to the FSS reflector.