‘Surrounded-element’ approach for the simulation of reflectarray radiating cells

A new approach to analyse reflectarray cells is presented, which allows mutual coupling effects to be realistically accounted for by simulating each radiating cell with its actual neighbouring cells, either identical or not. The proposed approach is compared to more conventional approaches that consider either an infinite periodic environment or that neglect coupling effects. A comparison between reflectarray measurements and simulations leads to good agreement using the proposed approach.