Investigations into a power-combining structure using a reflectarray of dual-feed aperture-coupled microstrip patch antennas

This paper details an investigation of a power combiner that uses a reflectarray of dual-feed aperture-coupled microstrip patch antennas and a corporate-fed dual-polarized array as a signal distributing/combining device. In this configuration, elements of the reflectarray receive a linearly polarized wave and retransmit it with an orthogonal polarization using variable-length sections of microstrip lines connecting receive and transmit ports. By applying appropriate lengths of these delay lines, the array focuses the transmitted wave onto the feed array. The operation of the combiner is investigated for a small-size circular reflectarray for the cases of -3 dB, -6 dB and -10 dB edge illumination by the 2/spl times/2-element dual-polarized array.