A Compact Beam-Steerable Integrated Reflectarray Antenna for LEO Applications

In this paper, a beam-steerable metamaterial reflectarray antenna is proposed for low earth orbiting communication satellite applications. The feed holder stand was replaced by a flexible PF-4 foam. As a result, the whole antenna has an integrated planar structure and a continuous beam switching with 30-degree freedom was achieved. The distance between feed and the reflectarray plate is only 0.36 λc, the wavelength at 27 GHz. Furthermore, the 7×7 metamaterial antenna array demonstrated a stable maximum gain higher than 12 dB over a wide bandwidth from 23.5 GHz to 30.5 GHz.