Design and optimization of multi-faceted reflectarrays for satellite applications

The design and optimization of multi-faceted reflect-arrays for satellite applications are presented. The objective of this work is to investigate the performance of a multi-faceted reflectarray designed using a direct optimization technique. To this end, a single-layer multi-faceted reflectarray, that produces a contoured beam for a European coverage in a bandwidth of 17% has been designed. The performance is compared to that of a planar reflectarray as well as a shaped reflector. In the considered frequency range, the co-polar minimum directivity within the coverage of the multi-faceted reflectarray surpasses that of its planar counterpart with more than 1dB. Compared to the shaped reflector, the difference between the co-polar minimum directivity of the multi-faceted reflectarray and the shaped reflector is only 0.3 dB. To improve the cross-polar radiation of the multi-faceted reflectarray, cross-polar suppression is included in the optimization and the minimum cross polar discrimination of the optimized reflectarray is improved with 2.3dB without any degradation of the co-polar radiation.