Fabry-Perot antenna employing artificial magnetic conductors and phase gradient metasurface for wideband monostatic RCS reduction and high gain tilted beam radiation

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1-1-2021

Abstract

Platforms with low radar signatures require compatible antennas (low scattering) for communication purposes. Under this context, the article presents two Fabry-Perot (FP) Cavity antennas (Ant-1 and Ant-2). Ant-1's aperture is an integrated design of artificial magnetic conductor (AMC) surface and a phase gradient metasurface (PGM), incorporating three unit-cell structures. The antenna achieves reduced monostatic scattering over broad bandwidth, and simultaneously obtains high gain as well as tilted beam peak radiation. Patch radiating at 7 GHz forms excitation source of the cavity, and cavity height is 0.33 lambda, smaller than the heights of conventional cavity designs (lambda/2). RCS reduction is obtained over a bandwidth of 105.8% (4-13 GHz) for arbitrary polarizations, covering C/X bands. Antenna gain is 12 dB, and peak radiation tilt is -60 degrees in elevation plane. Simulations have been verified through fabricated prototype. Ant-2 is a modification of Ant-1. Ant-2's aperture is constructed from two unit-cell structures, and its aperture size is 41% smaller than Ant-1. Its cavity height is 0.3 lambda. Ant-2 also achieves wideband backscattering reduction; however, due to asymmetric layout of unit-cell elements over the aperture, radar cross section (RCS) reduction bandwidth is different for the two polarizations. For vertically polarized (VP) incident wave, RCS reduction bandwidth is 105.8% (4-13 GHz), but for horizontally polarized (HP) wave, it is 85.7% (5.2-13 GHz). Nevertheless, broadband RCS reduction is still achieved for both polarizations. Peak gain is 11.73 dB, achieved at -37 degrees tilt angle. Simulations are presented for Ant-2. Compared to literature, both antennas show various improved results.

Keywords

Radar cross-sections, Layout, Scattering, Apertures, Metasurfaces, Conductors, Radar antennas, Artificial magnetic conductor (AMC), Fabry-Perot (FP) cavity antenna, Phase gradient metasurface (PGM), Radar cross section (RCS), Tilted beam radiation

Publication Title

IEEE Access

Divisions

fac_eng

Funders

Universiti Malaya[GPF015A-2019]

Volume

9

Publisher

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers

Publisher Location

445 HOES LANE, PISCATAWAY, NJ 08855-4141 USA

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