1456 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 61, NO.
3, MARCH 2013
profile. The broadband performance of the horn can be seen in Fig. 7.
The E and H-plane plots compare well to the simulated far-fields, a
similar result is found for the 45 plane. There is a narrowing of the
beam with increasing frequency as predicted by simulations and as
shown in other corrugated horns [19], but the primary lobe in both
the E and H-plane measurements remains stable over the entire range.
These results agree with the simulations over the measured frequency
band. This proves that the horn has a very well defined primary lobe
with low side-lobes and low cross-polarization, therefore the viability
of the corrugated horn design for implementation in a continuously
tunable and broadband gyro-device has been demonstrated.
IV. CONCLUSION
A corrugated horn has been studied as a quasi-optical mode con-
verter to launch a Gaussian wave through a depressed collector system
for frequency tuneable gyro-devices. The low reflection ( 30 dB),
high directivity ( 27 dB), the high purity Gaussian contents ( 98%)
and broadband capability (84–104 GHz) meets our design criteria. It
was found that the measured performances of the corrugated horn were
in good agreement with the numerical simulations.
REFERENCES
[1] T. Imai, N. Kobayashi, R. Temkin, M. Thumm, M. Q. Tran, and V.
Alikaev, “ITER R&D: Auxiliary systems: Electron cyclotron heating
and current drive system,” Fusion Eng. Des., vol. 55, no. 2–3, pp.
281–289, 2001.
[2] W. M. Manheimer, G. Mesyats, and M. I. Petelin, Applications of High-
Power Microwaves. Norwood, MA, USA: Artech House, 1994.
[3] T. I. Smirnova, A. I. Smirnov, and R. B. Clarkson, “W-band (95 GHz)
EPR spectroscopy of nitroxide radicals with complex proton hyperne
structure: Fast motion,” J. Phys. Chem., vol. 99, no. 22, pp. 9008–9016,
1995.
[4] W. He, C. R. Donaldson, F. Li, L. Zhang, A. W. Cross, A. D. R. Phelps,
K. Ronald, C. W. Robertson, C. G. Whyte, and A. R. Young, “W-band
gyro-devices using helically corrugated waveguide and cusp gun: De-
sign, simulation and experiment,” TST, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 9–19, 2011.
[5] C. R. Donaldson, W. He, A. W. Cross, F. Li, A. D. R. Phelps, L. Zhang,
K. Ronald, C. W. Robertson, C. G. Whyte, and A. R. Young, “A cusp
electron gun for millimeter wave gyrodevices,” Appl. Phys. Lett., vol.
96, no. 14, p. 141501, 2010.
[6] L. Zhang, W. He, K. Ronald, A. D. R. Phelps, C. G. Whyte, C. W.
Robertson, A. R. Young, C. R. Donaldson, and A. W. Cross, “Multi-
mode coupling wave theory for helically corrugated waveguide,” IEEE
Trans. Microwave Theory Tech., vol. 60, no. 1, pp. 1–7, 2012.
[7] W. He, A. W. Cross, A. D. R. Phelps, K. Ronald, C. G. Whyte, S.
V. Samsonov, V. L. Bratman, and G. G. Denisov, “Theory and simula-
tions of a gyrotron backward wave oscillator using a helical interaction
waveguide,” Appl. Phys. Lett., vol. 89, no. 9, p. 091504, 2006.
[8] S. N. Vlasov and I. M. Orlova, “Quasi-optical transformer which
transforms the waves in a waveguide having circular cross-section
into highly-direction wave beam,” Radiophys. Quant. Electron., vol.
17, pp. 148–154, 1974.
[9] F. Villa, M. Sandri, N. Mandolesi, R. Nesti, M. Bersanelli, A. Simon-
etto, C. Sozzi, O. D’arcangelo, V. Muzzini, A. Mennella, P. Guzzi, P.
Radaelli, R. Fusi, and E. Alippi, “High performance corrugated feed
horns for space applications at millimeter wavelengths,” Experim. As-
tron., vol. 14, no. 1, pp. 1–15, 2006.
[10] J. Teniente, R. Gonzalo, and C. D. Rio, “Low sidelobe corrugated horn
antennas for radio telescopes to maximize ,” IEEE Trans. An-
tennas Propag., vol. 59, no. 6, pp. 1886–1893, 2011.
[11] G. Addamo, O. Peverini, R. Tascone, G. Virone, P. Cecchini, and R.
Orta, “A ku-k dual-band compact circular corrugated horn for satel-
lite communications,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag. Lett., vol. 8, pp.
1418–1421, 2009.
[12] C. Granet, G. James, R. Bolton, and G. Moorey, “A smooth-walled
spline-profile horn as an alternative to the corrugated horn for wide
band millimeter-wave applications,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag.,
vol. 52, no. 3, pp. 848–854, 2004.
[13] B. Maffei, P. A. R. Ade, C. E. Tucker, E. Wakui, R. J. Wylde, J. A.
Murphy, and R. M. Colgan, “Shaped corrugated horns for cosmic mi-
crowave background anisotropy measurements,” Int. J. Infrared Milli.
Waves, vol. 21, no. 12, pp. 2023–2033, 2000.
[14] Y. Beniguel, A. Berthon, C. V. Klooster, and L. Costes, “Design real-
ization and measurements of a high performance wide-band corrugated
horn,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 53, no. 11, pp. 3540–3546,
2005.
[15] P. A. Cruickshank, D. R. Bolton, D. A. Robertson, R. I. Hunter, R. J.
Wylde, and G. M. Smith, “A kilowatt pulsed 94 GHz electron para-
magnetic resonance spectrometer with high concentration sensitivity.
high instantaneous bandwidth, low dead time,” Rev. Sci. Instrum., vol.
80, no. 10, p. 103102, 2009.
[16] P. J. B. Clarricoats and A. D. Olver, Corrugated Horns for Microwave
Antennas. London, U.K.: Peregrinus, 1984.
[17] W. B. Dou and Z. L. Sun, “A note on the coupling efficiency between
an antenna and a gaussian beam,” Int. J. Infrared Milli. Waves, vol. 17,
no. 7, pp. 1235–1241, 1996.
[18] J. M. Neilson, “Optimization of quasi-optical launchers for multi-
frequency gyrotrons,” IEEE Trans. Plasma Sci., vol. 35, no. 6, pp.
1743–1746, 2007.
[19] P. Fürholz and A. Murk, “The impact of slow-wave modes on the ra-
diation performance of a corrugated horn antenna,” J. Infrared Milli.
THz. Waves, vol. 31, no. 2, pp. 169–180, 2009.
Wideband Circularly Polarized AMC Reflector Backed
Aperture Antenna
Kush Agarwal, Nasimuddin, and Arokiaswami Alphones
Abstract—A wideband, circularly polarized (CP), artificial magnetic con-
ductor (AMC) reflector backed octagonal-shaped aperture (OSA) antenna
is proposed for unidirectional radiation. The proposed antenna consists of
an OSA fed by microstrip along with L-shaped stub and an AMC reflector.
Bidirectional radiation of OSA antenna is changed to unidirectional radia-
tion using an AMC reflector. The antenna height measured from the upper
surface of the AMC reflector to OSA radiator is chosen to be small to re-
alize a low-profile antenna: at the lowest analysis frequency of
4.5 GHz. Three different surfaces are studied and compared as back reflec-
tors for OSA: perfect electric conductor (PEC), single layered AMC sur-
face, and double layered AMC surface. The OSA with double-layered AMC
surface demonstrates the largest measured 3-dB axial ratio bandwidth of
33.2% (5.20–7.19 GHz) with impedance bandwidth of 36.2% (5.04–7.21
GHz) for VSWR of 2. Almost constant gain of around 7 dBic is achieved
over the band for the overall antenna volume of
at the center frequency of 6.0 GHz.
Index Terms—Aperture antenna, artificial magnetic conductor reflector,
circular polarization, low-profile structure, unidirectional, wideband oper-
ation.
I. INTRODUCTION
Aperture antennas are commonly used in broadband wireless appli-
cations as they have wideband bidirectional CP radiation [1]. Recent
works have shown that these antennas can be used for highly direc-
tive unidirectional (boresight) radiation by making them cavity-backed
by conducting metal reflector. The unidirectional CP aperture antennas
backed by metal reflector or back-cavity have narrow 3-dB axial ratio
(AR) bandwidth [2], [3]. The metal reflector or back-cavity deteriorated
the inherent wideband CP bandwidth of the aperture antenna [3]. Re-
cently in [4], wideband CP radiation was achieved using a conducting
ground plane as reflector surface for the microstrip-fed slot-aperture
Manuscript received June 07, 2012; revised August 13, 2012 and October 21,
2012; accepted October 22, 2012. Date of publication November 16, 2012; date
of current version February 27, 2013.
K. Agarwal and A. Alphones are with the Nanyang Technological University,
Singapore 639798, Singapore (e-mail: kush1@e.ntu.edu.sg).
Nasimuddin is with the Institute for Infocomm Research, (A-Star) Singapore,
Singapore 138632, Singapore (e-mail: nasimuddin@i2r.a-star.edu.sg).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TAP.2012.2227446
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 61, NO. 3, MARCH 2013 1457

hybrid antenna. The antenna shows 3-dB AR bandwidth of 21% for the
operating frequency band of 5–6 GHz and an overall antenna volume
of at the operating frequency of 5.5 GHz.
In [5], a bidirectional spiral antenna has been made unidirectional
by high-impedance-surface electromagnetic band gap (HIS-EBG)
plate as a back reflector. The structural geometry of an EBG structure
comprises periodic patches on a grounded substrate connected to the
ground via metal posts forming mushroom-like structures protruding
from the surface [7], [8]. This kind of structural geometry of soldering
the metallic vias to square metal patches introduces bumps on the
surface, resulting in air gap between the HIS-EBG and the upper
dielectric substrate layer thus resulting in frequency shift. Also, this
kind of design fabrication is complex and increases the cost of the
antenna structure. Thus, attempts have been made to use periodic
patches like EBG, but without vias, as the periodic repetitions for the
impedance surfaces. These planar structural geometries are known as
AMC [9], [10] or reactive impedance surface (RIS) depending on their
operating frequency range and functionality. The RIS comprising of
the square periodic patches on a grounded high dielectric substrate
have been used for antenna size miniaturization and performance
enhancement [11]. The above mentioned problem of deteriorating of
AR bandwidth [2]–[4] when the low-profile aperture antenna (whose
height is less than ) is made unidirectional backed by metal
reflector has been solved in this paper. As a solution, 0 reflection
phase periodic metamaterial AMC surface is used as a reflector in
place of the conducting metal back cavity.
In this work, a wide octagonal-shaped aperture (OSA) antenna is Fig. 1. Proposed wideband CP antenna: (a) cross-sectional view
studied for making a bidirectional aperture antenna into unidirectional and (b) complete view showing the OSA radiator placed over double-layered
for the analysis frequency band of 4.5–7.5 GHz. Three different re- AMC surface as back reflector, fed by the L-shaped feeding stub.
flector surfaces: perfect electric conductor (PEC), single layered AMC
surface and double layered AMC surface are used and compared as on substrate thickness of 1.6 mm and an array of 7 7 metal unit cell
back reflectors to make low profile OSA antenna unidirectional. The patches for the lower grounded AMC layer is designed periodically
analysis shows that the OSA backed by PEC reflector does over 1.6 mm FR4 substrate. Thus, the overall antenna structure com-
not produce wideband CP radiation for low-profile antenna geometry. prises three dielectric layers, upper dielectric layer of thickness
Based on this observation, 0 reflection-phase single-layered AMC sur- and lower dielectric layers of thicknesses ( and ) made up of FR4
face is used as a back-reflector for OSA antenna to im- substrate (dielectric constant of 4.2 and loss tangent of 0.02), respec-
prove the CP bandwidth. For further enhancement of CP bandwidth and tively. A thin microstrip line of length and width is used
front-to-back ratio, the double-layered AMC surface is finally used and as an impedance transformer between the tapered end of L-shaped stub
proposed to be the best as back-reflector for OSA . All and the 50- microstrip feed line.
the antennas are designed and optimized using CST Microwave Studio With a design goal to achieve wideband CP radiation for the op-
[12]. The measured results are in good agreement with the simulated erating frequency band of 5–7 GHz, the lowest analysis frequency is
CST results. chosen to be (below 5 GHz) and the highest analysis
The four sections followed by this introduction constitute the main frequency is chosen to be (above 7 GHz). The wideband
part of this paper. Section II describes the OSA antenna geometry CP radiation is achieved by varying the length and width
and design configurations for all the three back-reflector surfaces in of L-shaped stub placed on the double-layered AMC surface as the
the Sections II-A, II-B and II-C respectively. Section III discusses back reflector. When the radiated fields from the proposed wide OSA
the simulated results and brief analysis and interpretations of the combine with the reflected fields from the AMC surface, a wideband
performances of antennas. The measured performances of all the three unidirectional CP radiation is achieved. The bidirectional OSA radiator
antennas: , and are discussed and antenna, unidirectional , and unidirectional
compared in Section IV. Section V summarizes the results obtained antenna designs are discussed in subsections A, B, and C respectively.
in this paper. Note that each suffix , and All designed and optimized dimensions (in mm) for the proposed an-
appearing in this paper designates the material under the tenna are given in Table I.
OSA radiator.

A. CP Octagonal-Shaped Aperture (OSA) Antenna

II. PROPOSED ANTENNA GEOMETRY AND DESIGN
Cross-sectional view and the complete view of the proposed wide-
band CP unidirectional antenna are shown in Fig. 1. The
antenna consists of an OSA radiator placed over AMC surface and a
microstrip feed with L-shaped stub. The L-shaped stub is used symmet-
rically along the -axis. The reflector AMC surface consists of double
layered patch arrays on a low cost FR4 substrate. An array of 6 6
square metallic unit cell patches for the upper AMC layer is designed
The bidirectional OSA antenna with L-shaped stub feeding circuitry
is designed for wideband CP radiation on a thin FR4 substrate thick-
ness of as shown in Fig. 2. The antenna geometry consists of an
aperture on one side of FR4 PCB, and the feeding circuitry with the
impedance transformer on the other side. For the CP radiation, two or-
thogonal resonant modes with equal magnitudes and 90 phase differ-
ence are simultaneously excited using an L-shaped feeding stub. The
sides of octagonal-shaped slot designed in ground plane are of length
1458 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 61, NO. 3, MARCH 2013
TABLE I
ANTENNA DESIGN PARAMETERS OVER AMC SURFACES AND PLANAR METAL
SURFACE
Fig. 2. Octagonal-shaped aperture antenna.
based on operating frequency band and L-shaped stub optimized
for wideband CP radiation from the antenna.
B. CP OSA Antenna Over the Single-Layered AMC
The bidirectional OSA antenna (discussed in subsection A) is
made unidirectional using the 0 reflection phase AMC surface which
consists of 5 5 array of square metallic patch structures periodically
printed on the ground backed substrate. As it is well known, PEC and
PMC surfaces introduce 180 and 0 reflection phase, respectively.
Therefore, the unit cell of the AMC surface is first designed to show
0 reflection phase at 6.0 GHz. The reflection phase response of the
unit cell is shown in Fig. 3 for the variation in metal patch parameter
, keeping the overall unit cell size as constant.
The optimized metal patch unit achieves a 0 reflection phase at 6
GHz for . width of
Fig. 3. AMC unit cell enclosed by PEC walls in direction of -field, PMC
walls in the direction of -field and illuminated by incident plane wave in neg-
ative -direction with the simulated reflection phase graph of the unit cell with
different values of unit metal square patch dimension .
C. CP OSA Antenna Over Double-Layered AMC
In this subsection, the design of double-layered AMC surface is dis-
cussed to enhance the CP radiation bandwidth and front-to-back ratio.
The double-layered AMC surface is designed with 6 6 and 7 7
arrays of the metal unit periodic patches on the upper and lower layers,
respectively, for FR4 substrate of thicknesses and . The OSA radi-
ator is placed over the double-layered AMC surface with foam height
of (this distance is chosen according to the thickness
of the commercially available Styrofoam slab). The unit cell of the
double-layered AMC surface is designed and optimized for having a
0 reflection phase change at 6.0 GHz. As for the single-layered AMC
surface (discussed in subsection B), the metal patch size is varied
while keeping the overall single unit cell size as con-
stant. The double-layered AMC surface is designed with an aim to re-
duce the operating frequency (or the unit cell size for the same fre-
quency when compared to single-layered AMC surface) to accommo-
date more metal patches in the desired reflector surface area to achieve
better CP performance and front-to-back ratio. The square metal unit
patch size is smaller for the double-layered AMC surface as compared
to the unit patch size used in single-layered AMC surface at the same
desired operating frequency. As a result, number of metal patches is
increased for double-layered AMC surface at fixed surface area and
it is more effective to be used as a reflector for OSA antenna. This is
based on our observation that the uniformity of field distribution and
the effect of AMC improves with the increase in array size (n n for
example) of AMC unit metal patches. The metal unit patch parameter
is optimized to 3.4 mm for having a 0 reflection phase at 6 GHz
as shown in Fig. 4.
III. COMPARISON OF SIMULATED RESULTS
The same size antenna is also designed with similar height
of the OSA radiator from the PEC reflector (like in case of
and for the proper comparison of OSA antenna over
the different surfaces. Performances of the , and
antennas are compared and studied in this section. The
designed and optimized dimensions of the antenna structures are given
in Table I. Fig. 5(a) shows the simulated VSWR of the OSA radiator
over three surfaces: double-layered AMC surface, single-layered AMC
surface, and the planar PEC metal surface. Among all the proposed de-
signs, the has the largest impedance bandwidth (VSWR
2).
Simulated AR at the boresight of OSA antenna backed by three dif-
ferent reflector surfaces is compared in Fig. 5(b). The 3-dB AR band-
is very narrow (5.95–6.25 GHz) as compared to the
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 61, NO. 3, MARCH 2013 1459

Fig. 4. Double-layered metasurface unit cell enclosed by PEC walls in direc-

tion of -field, PMC walls in the direction of -field and illuminated by in-
cident plane wave in negative -direction with the simulated reflection phase
graph of the composite unit cell with different values of unit metal square patch
dimension .

Fig. 6. Normalized radiation patterns of OSA antenna backed by three reflector

surfaces at 6.0 GHz: (a) -plane and (b) -plane.

IV. MEASURED RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

All the three , and antennas

were fabricated and measured to validate the proposed designs ex-
perimentally. The measured and simulation graphs of the VSWR,
AR (boresight), and gain (boresight) with frequency are shown in
Figs. 7(a), (b), and (c) for respectively. The measured
2-VSWR impedance bandwidth is around 36.2% (5.04–7.21 GHz).
The CP performances were measured using a rotating linearly polar-
ized transmitting horn antenna. The measured 3-dB AR bandwidth is
around 33.2% (5.20–7.19 GHz) in the boresight direction, which is
Fig. 5. (a). VSWR of OSA antenna backed by three reflector surfaces. (b) completely within the 2-VSWR impedance bandwidth. A maximum
Axial-ratio (boresight) of OSA antenna backed by three reflector surfaces.
measured gain of around 7.0 dBic is achieved at the boresight as
shown in Fig. 7(c). The measured results are in good agreement with
and antennas. The minimum AR is 2.5 dB simulations.
at around 6.0 GHz for whereas minimum AR for OSA an- The measured normalized radiation patterns of the proposed
tenna backed by AMC surfaces is less than 1.0 dB. The antenna with both the principal planes ( - and
has the largest 3-dB AR bandwidth compared to the and -planes) are plotted in Fig. 8 respectively, for 5.50 GHz and 6.50
antennas. The simulated normalized radiation patterns of the GHz. The ripples in the measured linear spinning pattern represent the
OSA antenna are also compared for three different surfaces as shown quality of CP radiation. Depth of small dips in the measured pattern
in Fig. 6. The shows an improved front-to-back ratio of defines the AR. The 3-dB AR beamwidth is more than 90 for 3-dB
around 6.0 dB as compared to the , whereas the AR bandwidth frequency range.
shows an improvement of 3.0 dB in front-to-back ratio as compared to The measured performances of the OSA antenna over three different
the . surfaces, the slot-aperture hybrid antenna as reported in [4] and the
1460
Fig. 7. Measured and simulation results for : (a) VSWR, (b) axial
ratio at the boresight, and (c) gain at the boresight.
EBG backed equiangular spiral antenna as reported in [5] are com-
pared in Table II. As compared to the antenna presented in [4], the an-
tennas over the AMC surfaces, which are proposed in this work, show
larger 3-dB AR bandwidth while having less overall volume. More-
over, the proposed antenna’s total height is also small as compared to
the metal backed antenna presented in [4]. For the proposed
antenna, measured AR is very poor (more than 5 dB) for the antenna
overall height as that of antennas designed over AMC surfaces, but
the bandwidth is the largest. This inconsistency between
the measured ( 49.7%) and simulated ( 31%) band-
widths for the fabricated antenna might be due to the reason
that the foam height of used to fabricate the
antenna was realized by using two foam layers (one is commercially
available Styrofoam with foam thickness of 5.5 mm and the other fab-
ricated 3.2 mm thick foam was made from 5.5 mm foam), thus the
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 61, NO. 3, MARCH 2013
Fig. 8. Measured normalized radiation patterns of antenna pro-
totype for both principal planes: (a) 5.50 GHz and (b) 6.50 GHz.
TABLE II
COMPARISON OF MEASURED PERFORMANCES OF THE ANTENNAS
fabricated foam height might not be exactly 8.7 mm for the fabricated
antenna. Also, copper sheet of 0.5 mm thickness was used
as back reflector in place of PEC used in simulation. The
bandwidth is very sensitive to the separation between the OSA and the
metal back reflector and so the measurement results obtained from this
fabricated antenna are not in good agreement with the CST
simulated antenna model results.
However, gains of all antennas are almost same. The proposed
and antennas have better performance
when compared with the slot antenna with metal reflector [4] and
proposed antenna. The proposed antenna
shows improved CP bandwidth with almost same gain and has the
largest 3-dB AR bandwidth. The proposed antennas performances
are also compared with the EBG backed equiangular spiral antenna
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 61, NO. 3, MARCH 2013
[5]. The spiral antenna has largest 3-dB AR bandwidth, but an-
tenna’s overall volume is around
25 times larger compared to the proposed antenna overall volume
. The gain variation over the band is
also more than 3 dB for the spiral antenna proposed in [5].
V. CONCLUSION
A wideband, unidirectional, single feed, circularly polarized, wide
octagonal-shaped aperture antenna backed by single-layered AMC
surface and double-layered AMC surface has been studied and pre-
sented. The L-shaped stub is used to excite two orthogonal modes
for generating the CP radiation. The unidirectional CP radiation has
been achieved by using AMC surface as back-reflector in place of
conventionally used planar metal reflector.
Three different surfaces have also been compared for the proposed
aperture radiator to transform bidirectional CP radiation to unidirec-
tional. The planar metal surface which is very close to aperture an-
tenna is not useful for wideband unidirectional CP radiation, but AMC
surfaces with height less than can be useful for achieving uni-
directional wideband CP radiation. The front-to-back ratio of the pro-
posed antenna over AMC surface has also improved of around 6 dB as
compared to the aperture antenna over planar metal reflector. Overall
antenna volume has reduced using the AMC surface over the conven-
tionally used metal reflector backed aperture antenna presented in [4].
The proposed technique is useful for unidirectional wideband CP mi-
crostrip antenna design and wideband wireless applications.
REFERENCES
[1] N. Nasimuddin, X. Qing, and Z. N. Chen, “Symmetric-aperture
antenna for broadband circular polarization,” IEEE Trans. Antennas
Propag., vol. 59, no. 10, pp. 3932–3936, Oct. 2011.
[2] K.-L. Lau, H. Wong, and K.-M. Luk, “A full-wavelength circularly
polarized slot antenna,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 54, no. 2,
pp. 741–743, Feb. 2006.
[3] C.-J. Wang and C.-H. Chen, “CPW-fed stair-shaped slot antennas with
circular polarization,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 57, no. 8,
pp. 2483–2486, Aug. 2009.
[4] Y. Lu, M. Yu, and Y. Lin, “A single-fed slot-aperture hybrid antenna for
broadband circular polarization operations,” Microwave Opt. Technol.
Lett., vol. 54, no. 2, pp. 412–415, Feb. 2012.
[5] H. Nakano, K. Kikkawa, N. Kondo, Y. Iitsuka, and J. Yamauchi,
“Low-profile equiangular spiral antenna backed by an EBG reflector,”
IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 57, no. 5, pp. 1309–1318,
May 2009.
[6] H. Nakano, R. Satake, and J. Yamauchi, “Extremely low-profile,
single-arm, wideband spiral antenna radiating a circularly polarized
wave,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 58, no. 5, pp. 1511–1520,
May 2010.
[7] D. Sievenpiper, L. Zhang, R. F. J. Broas, N. G. Alexopolous, and E.
Yablonovitch, “High impedance electromagnetic surfaces with a for-
bidden frequency band,” IEEE Trans. Microw. Theory Tech., vol. 47,
no. 11, pp. 2059–2074, 1999.
[8] D. Sievenpiper, “High Impedance Electromagnetic Surfaces,” Ph.D.
dissertation, Univ. California, Los Angeles, CA, USA, 1999.
[9] A. Foroozesh and L. Shafai, “Application of combined electric- and
magnetic- conductor ground planes for antenna performance enhance-
ment,” Can. J. Elect. Comput. Eng., vol. 33, no. 2, pp. 87–98, Spring,
2008.
[10] A. Mehrabani and L. Shafai, “Effect of extending grounded substrate
beyond AMC on the performance of spiral antennas,” presented at
the Int. Symp. on Antenna Technology and Applied Electromagnetics
(ANTEM-AMEREM), Jul. 2010.
[11] H. Mosallaei and K. Sarabandi, “Antenna miniaturization and
bandwidth enhancement using a reactive impedance substrate,”
IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 52, no. 9, pp. 2403–2414,
Sep. 2004.
[12] “CST Microwave Studio,” ver. 2010.04, Jun. 2010.
1461
A Dual-Focus Reflector Antenna for Spaceborne SAR
Systems With Digital Beamforming
Sigurd Huber, Marwan Younis, Gerhard Krieger, and
Alberto Moreira
Abstract—Future spaceborne synthetic aperture radar (SAR) missions
shall benefit from digital beamforming (DBF) techniques with the goal of
generating high-resolution wide-swath imagery. The basic idea is to replace
parts of the analog receiver hardware by digital components, increasing
the flexibility of such systems. The limited transmit power rises the need of
large antennas capable of electronically steering the antenna beam over a
large angular domain. An innovative concept is the usage of large unfold-
able mesh-reflector antennas in combination with digital feed arrays. An
inherent problem of such systems is, that every feed element illuminates,
after reflection from the main reflector, an essentially non-overlapping an-
gular domain in the far field. In case of an element failure the radar system
would be ‘blind’ in the specific direction. To circumvent costly redundant
receiver hardware a new approach to increase the reliability of such sys-
tems has been studied. The approach is based on a so called defocused re-
flector which grants visibility of the complete angular domain under failure
conditions. This article presents the electromagnetic considerations leading
to the defocused reflector concept. The performance of the defocused re-
flector system is evaluated in comparison to a conventional parabolic re-
flector system, utilizing digital beamforming techniques.
Index Terms—DBF, defocused, reflector antennas, SAR.
I. INTRODUCTION
Synthetic aperture radar imaging is a vastly developing discipline,
where information from distant objects can be retrieved contactless. Es-
pecially in the field of spaceborne Earth observation missions the perfor-
mance requirements in terms of revisit time or image resolution continu-
ously increase. Since the radar antenna naturally represents the interface
between the scattered electromagnetic energy and the radar signals after
reception, a careful design of the antenna is one key step in the concep-
tion of an efficient SAR system. A requirement directly affecting the
antenna design is the designated revisit time of the SAR satellite. For
applications like Earth system dynamics monitoring [1], a short revisit
time is desired, which in turn rises the need of large swath widths. At the
same time scientists are interested in a high information content of the
SAR signal. This is traditionally achieved by increasing the signal band-
width resulting in a higher resolution of the SAR images. Large swath
widths and high azimuth resolutions are contradicting requirements for
conventional SAR systems. This SAR inherent restriction can be over-
come by digital beamforming techniques [2], [3].
Of increasing interest for SAR applications become large reflector
antennas in combination with feed arrays [3]–[5]. These systems are al-
ready a mature technique for communication satellites, where commer-
cial deployable reflectors with diameters of more than 22 m and surface
accuracies up to Ka-band are realizable [6]. Reflector antennas typi-
cally generate a shaped beam due to the mechanical molding of the
reflector dish. That means, for any given feed position, only a certain
solid angle can be illuminated. Therefore a set of multiple feed ele-
ments is required in order to cover the complete region of interest. This
technology is considered as baseline for Tandem-L [7], a mission pro-
posal for an interferometric L-band radar instrument. In [8] a reflector
Manuscript received November 18, 2011; revised September 17, 2012; ac-
cepted November 15, 2012. Date of publication November 22, 2012; date of
current version February 27, 2013.
The authors are with the Microwaves and Radar Institute, German Aerospace
Center (DLR), Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany (e-mail: sigurd.huber@dlr.de).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this communication are avail-
able online at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TAP.2012.2229952