Compact Cassegrain Antenna based-on a Low- Profile Multi-faceted Reflectarray

Abstract

This article presents the design of a compact Cassegrain antenna that uses a multifaceted reflectarray (MFRA) as a main reflector. The multifaceted surface comprises several panels with different angular orientations, to conform a cylindrical parabolic profile along one plane. A prototype of this antenna concept has been manufactured and tested to provide a high gain in dual-linear polarization at the Ka-band. When compared with an equivalent single-facet aperture, the multifaceted approach effectively benefits from the parabolic profile optics to reduce the differential spatial phase delay. Consequently, the required phase excursion is smaller compared with the single-facet flat topology, resulting in enhanced beamwidth stability in the sectorization plane. The proposed low-profile multifaceted antenna demonstrates better in-band performance than other similar works in the literature, while maintaining similar compactness.