Wideband Radar Cross Section Reduction of Microstrip Patch Antenna using Polarization Converter Metasurface

Abstract

Antenna is the key device of communication on stealth platform. It is the greatest contributor to the overall RCS. So, it is desired to reduce the radar signature of the antenna. In this paper, a novel antenna is designed using polarization converter metasurface. The polarization converter metasurface converts the polarization of the incident wave into its orthogonal component. This PCM structure is loaded around patch antenna to reduce the RCS of the antenna over wide frequency range. With this novel design, the overall RCS reduction bandwidth of 140.57%  is obtained for the frequency range of 3.49 GHz – 20 GHz. In addition to this, the 10 dB RCS reduction bandwidth is obtained for the frequency ranges of 8.84 GHz – 10.42 GHz (16.41%) and 16.99 GHz – 17.81 GHz (4.71%). The design shows excellent angular stability for both TE and TM polarization. Discernible Bistatic Radar Cross Section reduction is obtained over a wide frequency range. Simulation and experimental results show that there is no degradation in antenna radiation pattern and other parameters. So, with this novel design the problem of obtaining wideband RCS reduction of a microstrip patch antenna is addressed without degradation in radiation pattern along with excellent angular stability for both the polarization modes.