A Novel Ku/Ka Dual-Band Reflectarray Antenna

With Arbitrary Polarization

Jianing Zhao, Hao Li, Wei Mao, Shengli Cao, Keqiang Wang，Peng Zhao, Qian Li
University of Electronic Science and Technology of China
School of Physical Electronics
Sichuan, China
zjn317253663@126.com

Abstract— This paper describes a novel Ku/Ka band
reflectarray antenna for operating at arbitrary polarization. The
reflectarray elements consist of two different types of elements:
cross-dipole element with fixed-dimension ring for the lower
band, and the ring element with round patches for the upper
band. Furthermore, the parameters of the element are optimized
to suppress the coupling effects. The simulated radiation patterns
of the dual-reflectarray antenna using the proposed element can
show a gain of 18.5 dB at 16 GHz and 24.9dB at 35GHz with the
aperture efficiency of 38.21% and 34.85% for the lower and
upper band, respectively.
Keywords—dual-band reflectarray; coupling effect; aperture
efficiency
I. INTRODUCTION
Reflectarray antennas combine certain advantages of
reflector antennas and phased arrays [1]. These advantages
include low profile, small antenna mass, reduced
manufacturing cost, ease of deployment, and beam steering
capability. Unfortunately, one of the prominent drawbacks of
fed configuration and simulated performance are illustrated in
section Ⅲ.
II. ELEMENT DESIGN
A. The structure of the dual-band element
The geometry of the reflectarray element which has a dual-
layer configuration is shown in Fig. 1. The element consists of
two different types of elements. The cross-dipole with fixed-
dimension ring for the Ku-band, and the ring with round
patches for the Ka-band. To support dual-band operation in the
same aperture, the elements of both bands are interlaced along
the x- and y- directions. The Ku-band element is arranged in a
square lattice with periodicity of 8 mm, which is equivalent to
0.43λ at 16GHz. The Ka-band element has a size of 4 mm,
corresponding to 0.47λ at 35GHz. All two types of elements
are etched on a 0.508 mm thick RT/Duroid 5880 substrate
(εr = 2.2, tanσ = 0.0009), both layers of substrate are glued
together through a FR4 bonding film (εr = 4.2, tanσ = 0.02).
Ku-band element Ka-band element FR4
h
Ground Ku-band element Ka-band element

reflectarray antennas is the narrow bandwidth performance, w2

which results from the inherent narrow bandwidth of rd

r1
microstrip elements and the differential spatial phase delay.
Moreover, in the case where the targeted application requires su wu w1
wd
w3
sd
two widely separated frequencies to share the same aperture, rb

the conventional reflectarray fails to provide coverage. ru

x
Therefore, several approaches have been presented to achieve x
y h1
x
y

dual-band performance, such as: using linear orthogonal z

polarizations to realize the dual-band performance [2], or using Fig. 1. Geometry of proposed element
two layers where each layer operates in one band 200 Ka-band Ku-band
150
independently [3]. However, these approaches either have 100
Reflection phase(deg)
reflection phase(deg)

0
insufficient phase shift range or put forward rigorous demands 0 -150
for the consistency of the polarization between the feed and
-100 -300
elements.
-200 -450
In this paper, a novel dual-band reflectarray at Ku/Ka band -300 -600
0.4 0.8 1.2 0 3 6 9
is investigated. The variable size of the element is used to ru(mm) sd(mm)
obtain 595.49° linear phase range and 374.21° linear phase (a) (b)
range at the center frequency of the two bands. Furthermore,
the proposed dual-band antennas can operate at arbitrary Fig. 2. Reflected phase curve of element.(a) at 35GHz (b) at 16GHz
polarization and have good performance. The paper is B. The phase characteristic of the dual-band element
organized as follows. In section Ⅱ, the proposed element are For the Ka-band element, a narrow width w1 is set to
designed taking into account the coupling effects. The offset- 0.2mm with the purpose of avoiding the strong coupling effect
between the two bands. In order to compensate for the spatial

978-1-5386-3284-0/17/$31.00 ©2017 IEEE 2053 AP-S 2017

phase delay, the inner ring radius ru of the upper substrate is 36 0 0
30
adjusted to achieve the reflection phases, as shown in Fig. 2.(a).

Elements in Y-direction
-50

Elements in Y-direction
-50
20
It can be seen that phasing range of 374.21° is obtained by 12
-100
10
-100
-150
applying the proposed element. For the Ku-band element, the -150
0
-4 -200 -200
cross-dipole length sd of lower substrate is varied to reach the -250
-10
-250
reflection phase, with constant width of cross-dipole. Moreover, -20
-300
-20
-300
for the sake of eliminating the changes of coupling effect from -36 -350
-30
-350
the variable size of Ku-band element, the four fix-dimension -36 -24 -12 0 12 24
Elements in X-direction
36 -20 0 20
Elements in X-direction

rings are put on the four quadrants separated by the cross- (a) (b)
dipole of both substrates. The simulated phase of the reflected
wave of Ka-band element versus sd is shown in Fig. 2.(b). It Fig.5. Required phase distributions for (a) Ku-band array (b) Ka-band array
can be seen that phasing range of 595.49° is obtained by Typical normalized radiation patterns are shown in Fig.6.(a)
applying the proposed element. for the Ka-band array and in Fig.6.(b) for the Ku-band array.
C. Coupling effects of the dual-band element The gain of proposed dual-band reflectarray antenna is 24.9 dB
with the aperture efficiency of 34.85% and that is 18.5 dB with
As the two types of the elements are assembled together, the aperture efficiency of 38.21%. In Fig.7, simulated gains
their coupling effects will change the performance of the dual- against frequency within 1-dB gain variation are 9.47% and
band antenna [3]. To obtain the mutual coupling effect of the 16.97% bandwidth for two operating bands, respectively.
proposed element, the reflection phase of one frequency band E-Plane E-Plane
0 0
(expressed as operated frequency) of the element with the H-Plane H-Plane

Radiation pattern(dB)

Radiation pattern(dB)
different dimension of another frequency band (expressed as -15 -15
coupling frequency) of that is simulated, as shown in Fig. 3. It
can be clearly seen that the phase responses of element of -30 -30
operated frequency have little prone to the varied dimensions -45 -45
of the coupling element, which shows that the proposed cell
structure can effectively suppress the mutual coupling. -80 -40 0
Theta(deg)
40 80 -80 -40 0
Theta(deg)
40 80

200 (a) (b)

150
100
Reflection phase(deg)
Reflection phase(deg)

0 Fig. 6. Normalized radiation pattern of the proposed antenna (a) at 35GHz (b)
0 -150 at 16GHz
-100 -300 20
sd=0.5mm ru=0.4mm
Ka-band Ku-band
-200 sd=4mm -450
25
ru=0.88mm
sd=7.5mm ru=1.35mm
-300 -600 18
0.4 0.8 1.2 24
Gain(dB)

0 3 6 9

Gain(dB)
ru(mm) sd(mm)

(a) (b) 23 16

Fig. 3. Reflected phase curve of (a) Ka-band element at 35GHz (b) Ku-band
22 14
element at 16GHz 32 34 36 38 14 16 18
Frequency(GHz) Frequency(GHz)

III. REFLECTARRAY DESIGN Fig.7. The gain bandwidth of the proposed antenna at both band
A dual-band reflectarray antenna using the proposed IV. CONLUSION
reflectarray element is designed in Ku/Ka band. The
configuration of the dual-band reflectarray with the global A novel polarization-insensitive dual-reflectarray antenna
coordinate system is shown in Fig.4. The dimension D of the has been designed to operate in Ku and Ka bands. The
antenna is 72 mm. In order to minimize the blockage of the proposed element consist of the cross-dipole with fixed-
feeds, an offset configuration has been chosen where the phase dimension ring and the ring with round patches. For this dual-
centers of the two-band feeds are respectively located at (0, reflectarray antenna, the gain of 18.5 dB and 24.9 dB, and
36/-36mm, 73.81 mm). Moreover, the incident angle 𝜃ℎ and 𝜃𝑙 almost 38.21% and 34.85% aperture efficiency are obtained at
of both frequency bands are 30°, and the direction of the main Ku/Ka-band. One of the next steps will be manufacturing and
beam radiation is perpendicular to the cross-section of the testing of the dual-band reflectarray prototype to corroborate
antenna. Fig.5 shows the required phase distributions on the the simulation results.
dual-reflectarray antenna which can generate the pencil beams REFERENCES
at Ku and Ka band, respectively.
[1] J. Huang and J.A. Encinar, “Reflectarray Antennas,” A John Wiley and
z Sons. Inc, Publication, 2008.
Ku-horn
Ka-horn
[2] G. Lu, T. P. Khiang, and C. T. Huat, “Single-Layered Broadband Dual-
l h Band Reflectarray With Linear Orthogonal Polarizations,” IEEE
H Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, vol. 64, no. 9, pp. 4064-
y x 4068, Sept. 2016
D [3] P. Yu, Y. R. Zhang, and X. N. Yu, “A X/Ku dual-band reflectarray
design with cosecant squared shaped beam,” Microwave and Optical
Fig.4. The configuration of the dual-band reflectarray antenna Technology Letters, vol. 56, no. 9, pp. 2028-2034, June 2014.

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