A compact Ku-band Luneburg Lens reflector based on metamaterial structures

Compared to other conventional reflectors, better Radar Cross-Section (RCS) can be efficiently produced by the Luneburg Lens reflector. In this paper, a compact Ku-band Luneburg Lens reflector composed of metamaterial-based unit cells has been designed, simulated and characterized. By adjusting the dimension of the unit cell, almost continuously varying gradient index can be achieved. The effective permittivity of the unit cell is calculated by the simulation software CST and evaluated by the effective medium theory. The simulation results show that the proposed Luneburg Lens reflector is capable of providing a RCS of -1.49 dBm2 with a diameter of 75 mm (4A0 at 16 GHz), and a sound wide angle response as well.