Development of an adaptive surface using electromagnetically coupled patches

Although reflect-array and transmit-array are not new technologies, developing an adaptive surface to achieve both reflection and transmission, when required, will be another important technology, which will be advantageous for many applications. A structure with two electromagnetically coupled printed antennas is presented to obtain such a surface. The key factor for obtaining the adaptive nature of the surface is to receive and reradiate the energy on the same side when a reflection is desired, and to ensure efficient coupling of energy from one side to the other when a transmission is desired. An electronic circuitry with active elements will be required to achieve this performance. Beam steering is also possible by controlling the phase of individual unit in the array.