2021 8th NAFOSTED Conference on Information and Computer Science (NICS)

Ka-band Reflectarray Unit-cell with 1-bit Digital

Phase Resolution
Minh Thien Nguyen
School of Electrical Engineering
International University
Vietnam National University
2021 8th NAFOSTED Conference on Information and Computer Science (NICS) | 978-1-6654-1001-4/21/$31.00 ©2021 IEEE | DOI: 10.1109/NICS54270.2021.9701499
Van Su Tran Binh Duong Nguyen
School of Electrical Engineering School of Electrical Engineering
International University International University
Vietnam National University Vietnam National University

Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
nmthien@hcmiu.edu.vn tvsu@hcmiu.edu.vn nbduong@hcmiu.edu.vn

Abstract— A simple and low-profile reconfigurable unit-cell

design for Ka band reconfigurable reflectarray antennas is
presented in this paper. The unit-cell is based on a single
substrate and a ground plane that allows a simple fabrication
process. One p-i-n diode is used to control the reflection phase
shift with a step of 180°. The optimization of the unit-cell
structure is carried out with full wave simulation software.
Radiation characteristics of a 10x10-element reflectarray is also
validated in Ka- frequency band. Simulation results show that
the unit cell exhibits a good 1-bit phase control within a wide
bandwidth and the array achieves an excellent beam-steering
capability with low loss and wide scan angle.

Keywords—Reflectarray element, reflectarray antenna,

reconfigurable reflectarray.
I. INTRODUCTION
In the recent decades, reflectarray antennas have been
highlighted as high gain and low-profile antennas for many
applications such as radars, remote sensing, satellite and
point-to-point communications. Reflectarray antennas
represent a very attractive options to replace conventional
phased arrays and parabolic reflectors. Reflectarray antennas
have several benefits such as lighter weight, lower profile and
less expensive than a parabolic reflector which is typically
bulky and lossy due to high refraction index materials.
A reflectarray antenna, as depicted in Fig. 1, consists of
array of unit-cells and a feed source. The unit-cells receive the
spherical waves from the feed source and reflect it back into
free space. The reflected beam is collimated by adjusting the
reflection phase of each reflectarray unit-cell. Various
approaches have been introduced to vary the reflection phase
of the unit-cells such as: varying the size of radiating patch
elements [1-2], rotating the patch elements [3], varying the
delay lines coupled to the radiating elements [4-5]. Recently,
electronically reconfigurable reflectarray antennas are
attractive solutions for wireless applications that demand
wideband and beam-steering features. The key point to
reconfigure the antenna pattern is the capability of controlling
the phase shift of each unit-cell. Several works have provided
different solutions by integrating the tunable components into
the unit-cell for the electronic reconfigurability. In some
designs, the phase shift of the unit-cells is controlled by using
varactors [6], RF-MEMS [7-8] or p-i-n diodes [9-12].
The p-i-n diodes are more widely adopted components in
reconfigurable reflectarray designs thanks to their moderate-
cost and low loss at high frequency band. Wideband unit-cells
in [9-10] are designed by using 2 and 4 p-i-n diodes that are
inserted on the radiating patch elements to modify the surface
current, hence provide 1-bit phase resolution. Patch elements
Fig. 1. A typical reflectarray antenna.
coupled with delay lines could be inserted with p-i-n diodes
[11-12] to adjust the electrical length of the delay lines to vary
the reflection phase shift. Those designs could effectively
control the phase shift through controlling the p-i-n diodes,
yet multiple stack structures make the fabrication more
difficult and costly.
In the paper, we propose a design of a wide band, 1-bit
unit-cell for beam-steering reflectarray antennas, working at
Ka-band. The proposed unit-cell can provide two phase states
with a step of 180° in a wide frequency range by employing a
single p-i-n diode. Full wave simulations have been conducted
to show the reflection coefficients of the unit-cells and
validate the radiation characteristics of a fully populated
beam-steering reflectarray antenna.
II. UNIT-CELL DESIGN
A. Unit-cell Geometry and Principles of Operation
This section describes in detail the design and operation of
the 1-bit reconfigurable reflectarray unit-cell. It is designed to
operate with linear polarization where the electric field is
oriented along the x-axis as shown in Fig. 2. The unit-cell
structure consists of a radiating element printed on the top of
the substrate, a phase shifter element, and a ground plane. The
radiating element is made of two half-ring patches. The
substrate is Roger substrate RO5870 ( = 2.33, =
0.0012, ℎ = 0.78 ). On the bottom layer is the phase shifter
element which has a shape of an annual slot which is loaded
with a rectangular gap. A metallic plate acting as ground plane
is placed beneath the substrate with a distance of 0.5 mm. The
size of the unit-cell is 5.2 mm, corresponding to 0.48 and
the total thickness of the unit-cell is 1.28mm, corresponding
to 0.12 , where is the wavelength in free space at 28
GHz. Detail dimensions are shown in Table I.

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 2021 8th NAFOSTED Conference on Information and Computer Science (NICS)
Fig. 2. Geometry of the reconfigurable unit-cell.
TABLE I. DIMENSIONS OF THE PROPOSED UNIT-CELL.
Element Dimensions (unit: mm)
Radiating
= 2.2; = 0.8; = 1.08; = 0.2
layer
Phase shifter
= 2.4; = 2.2; = 0.6; = 0.3
layer
Substrate ℎ = 0.78
Air gap = 0.5
Cell size a = 5.2
In the unit-cell, the phase shifter layer has a shape of an
annual slot loaded by a rectangular gap to control the
reflection phase shift through controlling the p-i-n diode that
is inserted into to the rectangular gap. The geometry of the
phase shifter layer has been investigated for X-band
transmitarray unit-cell in [13]. In this work, the unit-cell is
optimized for operating at Ka-band. The annual slot is
designed so that it acts as a reflecting layer when the p-i-n
diode is ON. When the diode is OFF, the annual slot allows to
pass the waves received from radiating element to the ground
plane which is also another reflecting layer. The combination
between the radiating element, the annual slot and the ground
plane allows a difference of phase compared to the case when
diode is ON. The phase difference can be adjusted by distance
from the substrate to the ground plane. Therefore, two
different phase states can be obtained.
B. DC Biasing Topology for the P-i-n Diode
In order to bias the diode, a DC biasing network must be
designed. As shown in Fig. 2, the bottom layer is loaded with
an additional gap to separate the ring slot into two fractions.
The larger part is connected to GND pole of the power supply
by a small strip-line bypassing the annual slot. The smaller
fragment is connected to +Vcc through a metallized via hole
linked to the top layer. The additional separation gap is placed
orthogonally with respect to the rectangular slot loaded with
the diode. Three 0402-standard-size capacitors of 2 pF are also
mounted upon the gap to ensure the RF current can flow
through. The positions of the separation gap and the capacitors
are optimized so that they have a minimal impact on the
operation of the annual slot.
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(a)
(b)
Fig. 3. Reflection phase (a) and magnitude (b) of the unit-cell in two
different phase states.
C. Frequency Response of the Unit-Cell
A full wave simulation software HFSS is used to optimize
and simulate the proposed unit-cell. In general, a reflectarray
antenna is a planar-periodic structure. In the simulation,
lumped components are chosen to model the p-i-n diode. For
ON state, the diode is simulated as a 4Ω resistor. For OFF
state, a capacitor of 30 fF is used.
The frequency response of the unit-cell presented in Fig. 3
is simulated considering a plane wave with normal incidence.
As can be seen, the unit-cell responses in two reflection phase
states as the diode is switched ON and OFF. The phase
difference is about 180° and the phase curves are maintained
almost parallel within a wide bandwidth of 10 GHz, from 24
GHz to 34 GHz. Regarding to the reflection magnitude, the
loss within operative bandwidth is low in both phase states. It
is better than 1.5 dB in the state when the diode is ON and is
better than 0.1 dB when the diode is OFF.
III. UNIT-CELL VALIDATION FOR A 10X10 BEAM-STEERING
REFLECTARRAY ANTENNA
To validate the operation of the reconfigurable unit-cell, a
fully populated 100-element reflectarray antenna is simulated.
The radiation characteristics of the reflectarray antenna in
different beam scenarios could show us the performance of the
unit-cells regarding to the beam-steering capability of the
array. The simulated reflectarray antenna system is shown in
Fig. 4. The size of the array antenna is 52x52 mm2,
corresponding to 4.8 x4.8 at 28 GHz. The feed source
which is a small pyramidal horn antenna with the aperture of
20x14 mm2, is placed at a focal length of 60 mm,
corresponding to a ratio F/D of 0.84. The feed source is tilted
at 14° with respect to the z-axis to prevent blocking the main
beam of = 0°, φ = 0°.
 2021 8th NAFOSTED Conference on Information and Computer Science (NICS)
Fig. 4. A 100-element reflectarray antenna model in simulation.
The phase shift that required at each unit-cell to focus the
main beam in a given direction ( , φ) is determined by (1).
= ( − ( cosφ + y ) )
Where is propagation constant in free space,
distance between the feed source to the unit-cell.
For an ideal reflectarray design, the reflection phase must
be adjusted in each unit-cell to match these phases obtained
by (1). However, 1-bit reconfigurable reflectarray antenna is
based on the unit-cells that merely provide two phase states.
Therefore, the real phase ψ of each unit-cell must be
quantized using (2)
0° − 90 < i < 90
ψ =
180° 90 ≤ i ≤ 270
The radiation patterns at 28 GHz for different beam
scenarios are provided in Fig. 5. For the configuration of
broadside main beam, the maximum directivity reaches 18 dB
while the side lobe level is lower than 10 dB compared to main
lobe level. The reflectarray antenna could steer the main beam
up to ±40 with very low scan loss of circa 0.5 dB comparing
to the level of broadside beam. For the configurations when
the main beam is titled at ±40°, the scan loss increases slightly
to 2 dB.
Fig. 5. Radiation patterns at 28 GHz for different main beam angles.
IV. CONCLUSION
The design of a unit-cell for 1-bit reconfigurable
reflectarray antenna has been simulated. The unit-cell
structure, which is simple and easy to fabricate, could provide
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two phase states by using a single p-i-n diode. Simulated
results have shown that the unit-cell has a linear phase
response in both phase states and a low reflection loss for a
large bandwidth of 10 GHz. The reflectarray antenna
constructed from the unit-cells has also simulated and shown
good radiation characteristics in different beam-steering
angles.
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