Low-profile shared-aperture metasurface array antenna with ultra-wideband radar cross section reduction and circularly polarization

Abstract

This paper proposes a circularly-polarized (CP) metasurface antenna with ultra-wideband radar cross section (RCS) reduction. Initially, the relationship between RCS reduction and phase difference with different reflection amplitudes is analyzed theoretically. Inspired by the shared-aperture principle, a high-frequency resistive layer is introduced into the antenna element to further fulfill ultra-wideband RCS reduction and low-profile requirements. Numerical simulations demonstrate that the inserted layer has no effect on the radiation performance of the antenna array. Then, the proposed element and its orthogonal unit are arranged in a checkerboard pattern for good CP radiation. In this configuration, the proposed metasurface array antenna has a maximum gain of 16.7 dBi with 72.1% aperture efficiency. The bandwidth of 5 dB RCS reduction with x- and y-polarized incidences is 7.10–17.95 GHz and 7.34–17.85 GHz, respectively. The proposed design is verified by the fabrication of prototype antennas and measurements.