Design, manufacture and test of a low-cost shaped-beam reflectarray using a single layer of varying-sized printed dipoles

This paper presents the design, manufacture and test of a low-cost reflectarray antenna that provides a sectored-cosecant squared beam. The bandwidth limitation of single-layer reflectarrays is overcome by using three parallel dipoles in each cell. First, the relative length of the three dipoles is chosen to improve the element bandwidth. Then, the dipole dimensions are adjusted to generate a sectored beam in azimuth and cosecant squared in elevation. A prototype has been manufactured and tested. The measured radiation pattern has been compared with the results of approximate and full-wave numerical methods. The influence of the grounded substrate used to fix the antenna structure has also been investigated. Both experimental and simulation results demonstrate the capabilities of the proposed single-layer configuration to provide a shaped-beam on a 10% bandwidth and low losses. This antenna can be a low-cost alternative to multilayer configurations for communication and radar applications.