Experimental Validation of a Reflectarray Antenna in

Ka-band
J. A. Encinar, M. Barba, J. E. Page M. Arrebola
Dep. of Electromagnetism and Circuit Theory Dep. of Electrical Engineering
Universidad Politécnica de Madrid Universidad de Oviedo
Madrid, Spain Gijon, Spain
encinar@etc.upm.es, mbarba@etc.upm.es, jep@etc.upm.es arrebola@tsc.uniovi.es

A. Pacheco K. van’t Klooster

EADS-CASA Espacio, European Space Agency ESA-ESTEC
Madrid, Spain, Noordwijk, The Netherlands
Alberto.Pacheco@astrium.eads.net Kees.van.t.Klooster@esa.int

Abstract— A reflectarray antenna that provides a focused beam errors in the dimensions and dielectric properties of the
in Ka band has been designed, manufactured and tested. The materials have been evaluated and some conclusions are given
antenna demonstrator has been made up using two layers of to make the electrical design more robust against
patches printed on Kapton, which are bonded to low-loss prepreg manufacturing tolerances.
quartz materials. The effect of the manufacturing tolerance
errors in the dimensions and dielectric properties of the materials
have been evaluated. A good concordance is achieved between II. REFLECTARRAY DESIGN
simulations and measurements after taking into account the A circular reflectarray of diameter 18-cm has been
deviation in dimensions and dielectric constant. The measured designed in the frequency band 31.8-34.7GHz to produce a
18-cm antenna provides a gain better than 33 dB in a frequency collimated beam in the XRZR plane at 20 degrees from the ZR
band from 31 GHz to 34 GHz. axis, see Fig. 1. A standard pyramidal horn (15 dB) from Narda
has been used as feed, which is modeled as a cosq (θ) function
Keywords-Reflectarray antenna; multi-layer reflectaray, Ka-
with q=13 at 32.05 GHz and q=14 at 34.45 GHz. The horn is
band antennas.
placed with its phase center at coordinates (- 40, 0, 195) in mm
and oriented towards the point (-5.62, 0, 0) in mm. The
I. INTRODUCTION periodic cell was defined as 3-mm x 3-mm to avoid the
Printed reflectarray antennas have been demonstrated in appearance of grating lobes.
Ka-band for space applications [1], terminal antennas [2], [3] The reflectarray elements are based on two layers of
and point to multipoint communications [4]. A reflectarray varying-sized patches printed on 25-micron Kapton (εr=3.7,
terminal antenna in Ka-band made of two layers of varying-
tanδ = 0.0014) bonded to 0.25-mm prepreg quartz (QzII/EX-
sized patches was reported in [3], which produces a focused
beam at 30 GHz (uplink) in V polarization and 20 GHz 1516, with εr=3.2 and tanδ = 0.004), as shown in Fig. 2. A
(downlink) in H polarization, using separate feeds for each layer of 76-micron quartz is also bonded on the top to act as a
polarization. In that work the reflectarray was manufactured radome.
using a microwave commercial substrate (CuClad 233LX) of
thickness 0.787 mm, relative dielectric constant İr= 2.33 and
loss tangent tanį= 0.0012, and the results were very
satisfactory, showing a 10% bandwidth in both frequency
bands with an antenna efficiency of 62% at 30 GHz and 70% at
20 GHz.
In the present work, a reflectarray demonstrator comprising
two layers of varying sized patches is designed and
manufactured using space proven materials, such as Kapton
and low-loss prepreg quartz laminates. The reflectarray
sandwich is manufactured by a conventional curing process.
However, the final thickness and dielectric constant of the
quartz fiber composites can be slightly different depending on
the curing process, producing a noticeable impact in the
antenna performance. The effect of the manufacturing tolerance
This work was supported in part by the European Space Agency (ESA) Fig. 1. Reflectarray antenna.
under contract ESTEC/ 20413/06/NL/JA and by the by the Spanish Ministry
of Science and Innovation, under the project: CONSOLIDER-INGENIO
CSD2008-00068 (TERASENSE) and TEC2010-17567.

978-1-4244-9561-0/11/$26.00 ©2011 IEEE 353 AP-S/URSI 2011

 has been obtained from the measurement of the propagation
constant in several microstrip lines of different lengths, as
described in [5]. The measured values of the permittivity
(εr=3.0), loss tangent (tan δ= 0.006) and thickness (0.27-mm)
have been used in the design of the reflectarray antenna.
The phase-shift distribution that must be implemented in
the reflectarray to collimate the beam has been obtained at
different frequencies in the band 31.8-34.7GHz. The
reflectarray has been designed by using an iterative routine that
adjusts the dimensions of the patches in each reflectarray
element by calling an analysis routine until the required phase
at each frequency and polarization is achieved [6]. The
reflectarray analysis is based on Spectral-Domain Method of
(a)
Moments assuming local periodicity [7]. Once the dimensions
4],,(; .DSWRQ of all the patches are obtained, the radiation patterns and
 antenna gain have been computed at different frequencies. The
antenna gain at 31.8 GHz is 33.59dBi and 33.14dBi, for X- and
for Y-polarization respectively. At 34.7 GHz the gain is
$ORU&X 34.11dBi and 33.62dBi for X- and Y-polarization respectively.
The antenna gain, including ohmic losses is always better than
(b) 33dBi, and it is around 0.4-0.6dB lower than the antenna
Fig. 2. Two-layer reflectarray. (a) Periodic cell. (a) Sandwich configuration. directivity as a result of the ohmic losses and phase errors.

The phase and loss curves are computed considering a

periodic structure and a fixed ratio between the dimensions of
the patches in the two layers of 0.85. The results are shown in
Fig. 3 for the nominal values of thickness and dielectric
constant of the materials. The losses are less than 0.5dB, except
for very large patches that can be avoided in the design. The
effect of variations in the quartz thickness has been
investigated. A thickness variation of ±4% (±0.01mm in each
Qz-layer) produces an error in phase less than ±10º, which is
acceptable in the electrical design, and a thickness variation of
±8% (±0.02mm in each layer) produces ±22º phase error.
To check the repeatability of the Qz composite layers,
several samples of the sandwich shown in Fig. 2(b) have been
manufactured. The thickness of each quartz layer was
measured, giving an average value of 0.27-mm. Also some
samples with a printed microstrip line have been manufactured
to measure the dielectric constant. The complex permittivity
Reflection Phase ( Ex )
III. MANUFACTURE AND TEST OF REFLECTARRAY ANTENNA
Several reflectarray sandwiches have been manufactured by
EADS-CASA Espacio with the same lay-out to check
repeatability. The reflectarray sandwich has been bonded to a
1.6-mm thick flat aluminum plate and placed on a supporting
structure, which ensures the correct position of the feed-horn
and the reflectarray panel. Fig. 4 shows the reflectarray
breadboard including the feed horn and the reflectarray panel.
Two different reflectarray panels (numbered as 2 and 4)
have been tested in anechoic chamber to check repeatability.
Co-polar and cross-polar radiation patterns have been measured
in the principal planes for the linear polarization with the
electric field in the y-direction, according to the reflectarray
coordinate system shown in Fig. 1, in the frequency band 31-35
GHz. The antenna gain has also been measured by comparing
with the gain of a standard horn and the results are compared
with the values obtained from simulations. Note that the
antenna gain is higher than 33 dB in the band from 31 GHz to

33.5 GHz, which is an 8% bandwidth. The agreement with the

0
-200 32.05 GHz
-400 33.25 GHz
34.45 GHz
-600
1 1.5 2 2.5 3
Patch length (mm)
Ohmic losses (dB)

-0.5 32.05 GHz

33.25 GHz
34.45 GHz
-1
1 1.5 2 2.5 3
Patch length (mm)
Fig. 3. Phase-shift and losses vs. the resonant length for a two-layer
reflectarray made of squared patches (a1=0.85a2) at Ka-band at three
frequencies for normal incidence and nominal values of materials.
Fig. 4. Manufactured reflectarray antenna.

354
 36 IV. COMPARISON OF MEASURED PATTERNS AND
SIMULATIONS
35
The measured radiation patterns are superimposed onto the
34 simulated radiation patterns in the principal planes at 32.05
GHz and 34.45 GHz in Figs. 6 and 7 respectively. The
33 measured radiation patterns show some discrepancies with
respect to the simulations, basically a slight reduction in gain
gain(dB)

32 and an increase in the side lobes, which are more significant at

higher frequencies. These distortions in the radiation patterns
31 are the result of some phase errors produced by tolerance errors
in the dielectric constant and thickness of the quartz layers and
30 measured panel 2 in the dimensions of the patches, as discussed in the following.
measured panel 4
29 simulated gain The dielectric constant of the quartz has been measured
simul.directivity using microstrip lines printed on the same panel as the
28 reflectarray (panel 2), using the technique described in [5]. The
31 31.5 32 32.5 33 33.5 34 34.5 35
Frequency (GHz)
extracted value for the dielectric constant of the Qz layers
varies from εr=3.11 to εr=3.2, depending on the model used for
Fig. 5. Simulated and measured gain for panel 2 (a) and panel 4 (b). the simulations. The thickness of the different quartz layers
simulated gain is quite good at lower frequencies, but the have been measured, showing a dispersion in each layer
measured gain decays at higher frequencies, particularly in the ranging from 0.26 mm to 0.3-mm (nominal value is 0.25mm).
panel 4, because of some tolerance errors. The difference When the measured thickness of the first (0.28-mm) and
between simulated directivity and gain is about 0.4 dB second (0.29-mm) Qz layers are used in the simulations,
produced by ohmic losses in the dielectric layers. considering also εr=3.2 the results show a better agreement
with the measurements. Finally, the patch dimensions have
X-polarization at 32.05GHz Y-polarization at 34.45GHz
35 35
simul.(co-) simul.(co-)
30 30
simul. (cross) simul. (cross)
25 meas. (co-) 25 meas. (co-)
meas.(cross) meas.(cross)
20 20
15 15
Gain (dB)

Gain (dB)

10 10
5 5
0 0
-5 -5
-10 -10
-15 -15
-20 -20
-80 -60 -40 -20 0 20 40 60 80 -80 -60 -40 -20 0 20 40 60 80
Angle (deg) Angle (deg)
(a) (a)
X-polarization at 32.05 GHz Y-polarization at 34.45 GHz
35 35
simul.(co-) simul.(co-)
30 30
simul. (cross) simul. (cross)
25 meas. (co-) 25 meas. (co-)
meas.(cross) meas.(cross)
20 20
15 15
Gain (dB)

Gain (dB)

10 10
5 5
0 0
-5 -5
-10 -10
-15 -15
-20 -20
-80 -60 -40 -20 0 20 40 60 80 -80 -60 -40 -20 0 20 40 60 80
Angle (deg) Angle (deg)
(b) (b)
Fig. 6. Comparison of measured and simulated radiation patterns in elevation Fig. 7. Comparison of measured and simulated radiation patterns in elevation
(a) and azimuth (b) at 32.05 GHz for nominal values of materials. (a) and azimuth (b) at 34.45 GHz for nominal values of materials.

355
 Y-polarization at 32.05GHz Y-polarization at 34.45GHz
35 35
simul.(co-) simul.(co-)
30 30
simul. (cross) simul. (cross)
25 meas. (co-) 25 meas. (co-)
meas.(cross) meas.(cross)
20 20

15 15
Gain (dB)

Gain (dB)
10 10

5 5

0 0

-5 -5

-10 -10

-15 -15

-20 -20
-80 -60 -40 -20 0 20 40 60 80 -80 -60 -40 -20 0 20 40 60 80
Angle (deg) Angle (deg)

(a) (a)
Y-polarization at 32.05 GHz Y-polarization at 34.45 GHz
35 35
simul.(co-) simul.(co-)
30 30
simul. (cross) simul. (cross)
25 meas. (co-) 25 meas. (co-)
meas.(cross) meas.(cross)
20 20

15 15
Gain (dB)

Gain (dB)
10 10

5 5

0 0

-5 -5

-10 -10

-15 -15

-20 -20
-80 -60 -40 -20 0 20 40 60 80 -80 -60 -40 -20 0 20 40 60 80
Angle (deg) Angle (deg)

(b)
Fig. 8. Comparison of measured and simulated radiation patterns in elevation
(a) and azimuth (b) at 32.05 GHz for corrected values of materials.
been measured in some selected patches of the first layer,
showing that the patch dimensions are always larger than the
nominal values. To account for these tolerances in the
simulations, the patch dimensions in the two layers have been
increased in 40 microns, which is an average value for the
measured errors. The radiation patterns obtained after
corrections for thickness, dielectric constant and patch
dimensions are shown in Figs. 8 and 9, showing a much better
agreement with the measurements.
V. CONCLUSIONS
A flat reflectarray demonstrator has been designed,
manufactured and tested. Several tolerance errors have been
identified in the thickness and dielectric constant of the Qz
layers and in the patch dimensions, which produce a shift of the
resonance of the printed patches towards lower frequencies.
Despite the identified tolerance errors, the measured gain is
higher than 33dBi in a frequency band from 31 GHz to 34 GHz
(for panel 4, and up to 33.5 GHz for panel 2). Since the antenna
gain is stable in a large bandwidth and the tolerance errors
produce a shift in the operation frequency band, for practical
applications the design can be extended to a wider frequency
band in order to prevent for possible errors and to make the
electrical design more robust against tolerances.
(b)
Fig. 9. Comparison of measured and simulated radiation patterns in elevation
(a) and azimuth (b) at 34.45 GHz for corrected values of materials.
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