Mahmood Rafaei-Booket - Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering University of Zanjan Zanjan, Iran
Seyed Mostafa Mousavi - Institute of Electronics, Graz University of Technology Graz, Austria

We present a new phase realization approach applied to design the broadband single-layer reflectarray antennas. Such an optimization technique minimizes the adverse effects of frequency dispersion which limit the bandwidth of reflectarray antenna designed by traditional methods. Using this new approach leads to obtaining a wideband reflectarray by finding the optimum element arrangement on the antenna aperture. The excellence of such an approach in comparison with its counterparts is to decrease the dependency of wideband reflectarray design to the element phase behavior. For really assessment this phase synthesis approach, a single-layer reflectarray compromising of square patches loaded with split rings is designed with the help of this optimization technique. It is analytically and numerically shown that the simulated reflectarray can be a broadband antenna in which Side Lobe Level (SLL) value is reduced. To validate the obtained numerical results, a designed ۲۹×۲۹cm۲ reflectarray is fabricated and measured. Measurements demonstrate ۱.۵dB gain bandwidth of about ۲۸% covering ۱۲-۱۶GHz frequency band. Its |SLL| is also less than -۱۷dB (<-۱۳.۵dB for uniform excitation arrays). Such a design technique is applicable for approximately all reflectarray elements and relieves the designer from complex elements and multilayer structures.

Reflectarray Antenna, Broadband, Phase Realization Technique, Optimization