Design of Metamaterial Microwave Absorbers Array for Radar Cross-Section Reduction (RCSR)

In this article, an effective method using metamaterial (MM) technique to design a low radar cross-section reduction (RCSR) antenna array without affecting some of the antenna radiation characteristics is presented. The proposed design is a MM array with a square patch antenna in the middle of the array operating at specific frequency of 5.8 GHz. The designed structure of the MM unit cell is a square patch with several rectangular branches, which then it is utilized to build a MM array consists of 80-unit cells. The proposed design achieved a simulated return loss and peak gain of −25.3 dB and 7.73 dBi respectively. The whole designed metamaterial array with the patch antenna is considered as one antenna element and is used to design an antenna array of 3×3 and 5×5 elements. An improved simulated gain of 16.7 dBi and 21.2 dBi are reached for the designed antenna arrays. The proposed MM antenna design can be applied to RCSR applications such as radar station design for civil and navigational communication.