Tunable Reflectarray Cell for Wide Angle Beam-Steering Radar Applications

• Main Authors: F. Venneri, S. Costanzo, G. Di Massa
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Hindawi Limited 2013-01-01
• Series: Journal of Electrical and Computer Engineering
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2013/325746

An electronically tunable reflectarray element is proposed in this work to design beam-steering antennas useful for radar applications. A reduced size reflectarray unit cell is properly synthesized in order to extend the antenna beam scanning capabilities within a wider angular region. The radiating structure is accurately optimized to provide a full phase tuning range by adopting a single varactor load as phase shifter element. A 0.46λ-reflectarray cell is designed at the frequency of 11.5 GHz, obtaining a phase agility of about 330°. The cell is successfully adopted for the design of a 21 × 21 reconfigurable reflectarray. The antenna is numerically tested for different configurations of the varactors capacitance values, and good beam-steering performances are demonstrated within a wide angular range.