Wideband, Circularly Polarized, Large Multi-Faceted Reflectarray for Satellite Applications

This work presents an offset-fed, seven-faceted, hexagonal reflectarray (RA) with an aperture size of3050λ ₀²atf₀ \; = \; 50 \; GHz(this size is equivalent to a circular aperture with a diameter62.3λ ₀, or to a square aperture with a length of55.2λ ₀). The antenna has a 1-dB gain bandwidth (BW) of 13.4%, a 3-dB gain BW of 25.6% (39.8 to 51.5 GHz), and maintains a pencil beam in the satellite Q- and V-bands. The design is circularly polarized and has an axial ratio (AR) of less than 1 dB at all frequencies. The article presents a methodology to design multi-faceted RA antennas minimizing the phase error and explores the array theory approach to evaluate this type of antenna.