Dual-band beam scanning reflectarrays and novel wideband and polarization diversified planar antennas

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2009-05-15

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Abstract

The reflectarray antenna has been considered as a suitable candidate to replace the traditional parabolic reflectors because of its high-gain and low-profile features. Beam scanning capability and multi-band operation are the current trends of the reflectarray design. It is desired to implement these functionalities with simple and effective techniques. Narrow bandwidth is the main issue which restricts the applications of the microstrip antennas. New microstrip slot antennas and polarization diversified planar antennas are introduced as the solutions to the issue of narrow bandwidth in this dissertation. A dual-band beam scanning reflectarray has been developed. It is the first offset-fed reflectarray that has been ever practically developed to emulate a cylindrical/parabolic type of reflector. Unlike other beam scanning reflectarrays which integrate phase tuning devices into the reflectarray elements and control the reflection phase, the beam scanning capability of this reflectarray is provided by its feed array. This method significantly reduces the complexity of the design of the beam scanning reflectarray. A new dual-band reflectarray configuration is also developed to eliminate the possible top layer blocking effects in the dual-layer reflectarray configuration. Perforated patches loaded with slots on the ground plane and rectangular patches loaded with slots on the patches are adopted as the low and high frequency bands, respectively. It is guaranteed that no physical contact between any two elements will occur. The bandwidth of the conventional microstrip antenna is small. A new wideband circularly polarized microstrip slot antenna is introduced in this dissertation. Very wide 3-dB axial ratio bandwidth is observed for the proposed antenna. The antennas are assembled in triangularly arranged array with sequential rotation feed technique. Polarization polarity is an alternative solution to the narrow bandwidth. A reconfigurable circularly polarized microstrip antenna is proposed. The antenna has both right-hand and left-hand circular polarizations which are controlled by two piezoelectric transducers. In addition, a dual-band dual-linearly-polarized planar array is designed based on the concepts of polarization diversity and multi-band operation. The research presented in this dissertation suggests useful techniques for reflectarrays and novel antenna designs. The results should have many applications for the modern wireless communication and radar systems.

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