A Wideband 1-Bit Reconfigurable Reflectarray Antenna at Ku-Band

In this letter, a wideband high-efficiency 1-bit 16 × 16 reconfigurable reflectarray antenna (RRA) is proposed. First, a wideband and low loss 1-bit RRA element is designed. It consists of double-layer patches printed on two dielectric substrates, respectively, forming a multiresonant behavior to expand the bandwidth.Due to the relatively thin thickness of the double-layer dielectric substrate (0.05
λ
₀
), the element has low reflection loss. Therefore, the high efficiency and wide bandwidth performances can be obtained simultaneously. The phase difference between the two states of the RRA element is stable within 180 ± 20° in the frequency range of 12.9–16.5 GHz. Based on the broadband RRA element, a 16 × 16 RRA was fabricated and measured. Tested results show that the proposed RRA achieves 22.5% of 1 dB gain bandwidth and 25% of maximum aperture efficiency.