A low-profile dual-broadband dual-circularly-polarized reflectarray for K-/Ka-band space applications
Xuanfeng TONG1, Zhi Hao JIANG1,2(), Yuan LI1, Fan WU1, Lin PENG3, Taiwei YUE4, Wei HONG1,2
1. State Key Laboratory of Millimeter Waves, School of Information Science and Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing 210096, China 2. Purple Mountain Laboratories, Nanjing 211111, China 3. State Key Laboratory of Mobile Network and Mobile Multimedia Technology, ZTE Corporation, Shenzhen 518057, China 4. Apple Inc., One Apple Park Way, Cupertino, CA 95014, USA
A low-profile dual-broadband dual-circularly-polarized (dual-CP) reflectarray (RA) is proposed and demonstrated, supporting independent beamforming for right-/left-handed CP waves at both K-band and Ka-band. Such functionality is achieved by incorporating multi-layered phase shifting elements individually operating in the K- and Ka-band, which are then interleaved in a shared aperture, resulting in a cell thickness of only about 0.1λL. By rotating the designed K- and Ka-band elements around their own geometrical centers, the dual-CP waves in each band can be modulated separately. To reduce the overall profile, planar K-/Ka-band dual-CP feeds with a broad band are designed based on the magnetoelectric dipoles and multi-branch hybrid couplers. The planar feeds achieve bandwidths of about 32% and 26% at K- and Ka-band respectively with reflection magnitudes below −13 dB, an axial ratio smaller than 2 dB, and a gain variation of less than 1 dB. A proof-of-concept dual-band dual-CP RA integrated with the planar feeds is fabricated and characterized which is capable of generating asymmetrically distributed dual-band dual-CP beams. The measured peak gain values of the beams are around 24.3 and 27.3 dBic, with joint gain variation <1 dB and axial ratio <2 dB bandwidths wider than 20.6% and 14.6% at the lower and higher bands, respectively. The demonstrated dual-broadband dual-CP RA with four degrees of freedom of beamforming could be a promising candidate for space and satellite communications.