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Microstrip phased array has aroused interest of many researchers because of its beam agility. However, a big problem for typical microstrip array is that its main beam can only scan from about –50° to 50°, with a gain loss of 4-5 dB. Meanwhile, the relatively narrow operating bandwidth of microstrip antenna is also a problem in application. These flaws have dramatically limited its applications and spawned many studies on phased array with wide-angle scanning capability. Several methods have been proposed to broaden the scanning coverage of phased array, such as utilizing pattern-reconfigurable antenna as an element of array, taking wide-beam antenna as the element of array, and adopt metasurface as the top cladding of array. However, most of existing researches mainly focus on achieving wide-angle scanning performance within a relatively narrow bandwidth. A phased array that possesses wide-angle scanning capability at both main planes within a relatively wide bandwidth is highly desirable. In this paper, a wide-beam magnetoelectric (ME) dipole antenna is proposed. It consists of an ME dipole antenna in the form of microstrip patch and a pair of magnetic dipoles. Metallic through holes integrated with patches and ground are utilized to form magnetic currents. Extra magnetic dipoles are added to broaden the 3-dB beam-width. The simulated results reveal that the 3-dB beam-width of the proposed antenna is greater than 107° in the E-plane (9 GHz–12 GHz) and 178° in the H-plane (7 GHz–12 GHz) respectively. The impedance bandwidth of the proposed antenna is 53.26% from 7.3 GHz to 12.6 GHz (VWSR < 2). Based on the proposed antenna element, two linear phased arrays are fabricated and measured. To test the wide-angle scanning capability of the arrays, each antenna element is simply fed with alternating currents with identical amplitude and linearly increasing phases. The measured results reveal that the wide-angle scanning capability of H-plane array and E-plane array can be obtained from 9 GHz to 12 GHz. The scanning beam of the H-plane array can cover the range from -90° to 90°. The scanning beam of the E-plane array can cover the range from –70° to 70°. The impedance bandwidth of the central antenna is 27.03% for the H-plane array from 9.6 GHz to 12.6 GHz (active VWSR < 2.5) and 36.36% for the E-plane array from 9 GHz to 13 GHz (active VWSR < 2) respectively. Hence, the proposed method can be used as a reference for designing a wide-beam antenna and wide-angle scanning phased array and the designed phased arrays can be applied to X-band radar systems.

Aiming at obtaining low scattering antenna array, in this paper a novel method of integrating electromagnetic metasurface with conventional antenna is proposed. The theoretical analysis and practical implementation of this method are presented. Using this method, a novel antenna array is obtained by connecting partial unit cells of metasurface with transmission line and adopting coaxial excitations. In the radiation mode, the metasurface is excited and radiates effectively. Besides, the array has almost the same performance as the conventional array. In the scattering mode, this array demonstrates low in-band RCS due to the scattering cancellation of middle metasurface and other surrounding structures. Using this method, a 2 × 1 array, as an example, is designed and numerically analyzed. The results show that the array has the well-behaved radiation performance and low RCS property. The working principle of the proposed array is illustrated by investigating the current and resultant field. Further analysis also reveals the effecting law of metasurface unit cells in antenna's radiation and scattering performance. Therefore, flexible designs can be obtained to fit different requirements. Finally, experiments are conducted. And the good agreement between computations and measurements further verifies the validity of the proposed design. Moreover, the proposed method also features easy implementation and high integrity and can be extended to the designing of large scale array antennas.

The transmission polarization conversion metasurface has been widely concerned, because it has the advantage of being easy to be conformal with the antenna. Based on the reasonable arrangement of transmission polarization conversion units, various and complex electromagnetic functions can be realized. As the electromagnetic open window on the flight platform, the antenna is the bottleneck that restricts the decrease of radar cross section (RCS) of the whole flight platform. It is difficult to simultaneously realize the normal and efficient radiation of the antenna and the decrease of the RCS of the antenna. When the designed transmission metasurface is used in the antenna design, the radiation and scattering of the antenna can be regulated comprehensively. In this paper, a composite polarization conversion metasurface is proposed and verified. The unit cell of composite polarization conversion metasurface consists of two mirror symmetrical anisotropic metal patches in the upper layer, a dielectric layer and a polarization gate in the lower layer. When the polarization direction of the incident electromagnetic wave is perpendicular to the extension direction of the polarization gate and arrives at the composite polarization conversion surface, the conversion surface can realize the conversion from transmission linear polarization to right-hand circular polarization in a frequency range from 9.3 GHz to 10.9 GHz. When the polarization direction of the incident electromagnetic wave is parallel to the extension direction of the polarization gate, co-polarized total reflection can be realized. The chessboard arrangement metasurface is composed of composite polarization conversion unit and its mirror unit. A novel linearly polarized chessboard arrangement metasurface antenna is composed of the linearly polarized source microstrip antenna with a bandwidth of 9.4–10.7 GHz and the chessboard arrangement metasurface. By using the counter rotating cancellation characteristic of circular polarization, the chessboard arrangement metasurface antenna maintains linearly polarized radiation. Comparing with the source microstrip antenna, the linear polarization purity of chessboard arrangement metasurface antenna is improved from 9.5 GHz to 10.5 GHz. At the same time, the forward gain of the chessboard arrangement antenna increases and the radar cross section decreases. The maximum reduction is 39.2 dB. To further verify the practicability of the design and analysis, the chessboard arrangement metasurface antenna sample is fabricated and measured in microwave anechoic chamber with an Agilent 5230C network analyzer. The experimental results are in good agreement with the simulation results. This study has important reference value in the design of high gain, low RCS antenna and integrated regulation radiation and scattering of antenna.

With the rapid evolution of radar technology and mobile communication systems, polarization conversion has received much attention from academia and industry in recent years, which has the advantages of improving system performance through eliminating multipath fading. In this paper, a novel broadband reconfigurable reflective polarization convertor is designed, which combines the idea of metamaterial and the technology of micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS) switches. The proposed structure consists of three layers: an upper metallic patches layer, a middle dielectric layer with a thickness of 2 mm, and a bottom metal plate. There are through-holes of metal connecting the upper and bottom layers. According to the simulation using HFSS software, when the MEMS switch is on, the device works with a relative bandwidth of 57.77% from 7.78 GHz to 14.10 GHz, of which the polarization conversion ratio is larger than 80%. In addition, at 7.62 GHz and 12.56 GHz, the reflected wave is a right-hand circularly polarized wave and a left-hand circularly polarized wave, respectively. When the MEMS switch is off, the reflected wave is in the same polarization, which means the device does not convert the polarization of electromagnetic wave anymore. The electromagnetic wave are decomposed into the u-v coordinate system to further understand the wideband polarization rotation. The reflection phase and the surface current distributions of the convertor are analyzed. Then, the working principle of polarization rotation is explained by analyzing the current distributions and explaining the theory from three different viewpoints. Finally, a 1225-cell (35×35) prototype is fabricated to verify the simulation results. The measured curve has three resonant frequencies and shifts towards the lower frequency slightly. The discrepancy between simulations and measurements is mainly attributed to the restriction of fabrication and measurement condition. In general, experimental results are in agreement with the simulations: when linear polarized wave is incident, the reflected wave realizes the transition from co-polarization to cross-polarization as the switch is switched from off to on. The proposed reconfigurable polarization rotation surface has advantages of broadband, low loss and ease of fabrication, which has great potential applications in antenna radiation, reducing the radar cross section and other territories in controlling electromagnetic wave dynamically.

A shared aperture metamaterial (SA-MTM) with partially reflection and absorber characteristics is presented. The SA-MTM is composed of two metallic layers separated by a dielectric spacer; the top absorbing surface (AS) consists of oblique cross metallic pattern loaded with lumped resistances, and the bottom partially reflecting surface (PRS) consists of etched parallel slots in a metallic layer. An SA-MTM with partial reflection and absorption characteristics is fulfilled by making the absorbing surface and partially reflecting surface shared the same aperture in the vertical direction. The SA-MTM is applied to the waveguide slot antenna; the Fabry-Perot resonance cavity constructed by the PRS and the metallic ground layer of the waveguide slot antenna can achieve high gain, while the AS can obtain the low radar cross section (RCS) characteristic antenna by absorbing the incident wave. Simulation and experimental results demonstrate that the antenna with SA-MTM gain is enhanced above 3 dB in the operation frequency range, the backscattering RCS is obviously reduced in a frequency range of 2–9 GHz. This idea can help us design a high gain and low RCS antenna, which overcomes the conflict between scattering and radiation performance of antenna.

Based on the properties of the artificial magnetic conductor (AMC), a broadband low radar cross-section (RCS) reflection screen covering X and Ku band is designed and fabricated. The reflection screen is formed by combining two AMC cells, i.e., AMC1 with a dual band Jerusalem cross structure, and AMC2 with a wideband metal square patch structure. By optimizing the structures of these AMC cells, it is achieved that the frequency corresponding to the inversion point of the AMC1 reflection phase curve is equal or close to the frequency corresponding to the null point of the AMC2 reflection phase curve. Therefore, the valid reflection phase difference band is broadened and the RCS is reduced in a wider band. In addition, presented in this paper is a theoretical formula to calculate the reflection energy peak direction. When the incident angle, chessboard unit dimension and observed frequency are fixed, the reflection energy peak direction can be calculated by the formula. The calculation results from the theoretical formula are consistent with the HFSS simulation results, so the theoretical formula is valid. The simulation results indicate that, compared with the same-dimension metal RCS, the backscattering RCS is reduced by more than 10 dB in a frequency range of 7.4-17.0 GHz, except minority frequencies close to 9.8 GHz. The 10 dB-reducing RCS bandwidth covers the entire X band and most of Ku band, and the relative bandwidth is 78.7%. The largest reduction reaches 40.3 dB at 11.6 GHz. The simulations and the measurements are in good agreement. The results validate the broadband low RCS property of the reflection screen.

A method of reducing the in-band radar cross section (RCS) of waveguide slot array antenna by utilizing a metamaterial absorber (MA) is preflented. A novel ultra-thin (the thickness is only 0.01λ, λ is the wavelength corresponding to the MA resonant frequency) MA with high absorptivity and no surface lossy layer is designed; the absorber is composed of two metallic layers separated by a lossy dielectric spacer. The top layer consists of an etched oblique cross-gap patch set in a periodic pattern and the bottom one is a solid metal. Effective impedance of MMA will match the free space impedance by adjusting the dimensions of electric resonant component and magnetic resonant component in the unit cell, and so the reflection will be minimized. Meanwhile, the MMA can obtain a resonant loss to fulfill the high absorption. By finely adjusting the geometric parameters of the structure, we obtain the MA with absorption 99.9%, and its absorbing mechanism being interprefled by analyzing surface current, surface electric field, and volume power loss density distribution, respectively. The metallic area between slots in E plane direction of waveguide slot array antenna is covered by MA, and a distance between the radiating slot and the MA is suitably arranged. Antenna radiation performance is kept in good order because this arrangement does not destroy the amplitude distribution of antenna aperture, and the high absorptivity of MA that contributes the reduction of structure mode scattering. Simulation and experimental results demonstrate that the array antenna loaded with MA gets more than 6 dB RCS reduction both in the x-and y-polarized incident conditions; and the RCS of antenna has obviously a reduction from -25° to +25°, the most reduction value exceeds 10 dB in the boresight direction, while the reflectance, gain and beam width are guaranteed. This idea has an important significance and engineering application for the RCS reduction of array antenna.

A novel design for high gain and low radar cross section (RCS) waveguide slot antenna is proposed. Low RCS screen composed of orthogonal array of complementary split ring resonator etched square patch artificial magnetic conductor (CSRR-AMC) is exploited on the antenna for radiation improvement and broadband RCS reduction. Measured results demonstrate that the operating bandwidth is increased by 100 MHz and the gain is enhanced by 3.2 dB with the proposed structure. Meanwhile, 10 dB RCS reduction is achieved over the range of 5.52–6.63 GHz, implying 20% relative bandwidth.

A novel frequency selective surface(FSS) with stable performance is designed and applied to microstrip antenna. The FSS cell is composed of two metallic layers separated by a dielectric spacer. The top and bottom layers connected with metallic cylinders form the fractal dendritic model. By optimizing the geometric parameters of the model, an ultra-thin FSS spatial filter is obtained, whose thickness is only 0.017λ, with wideband, polarization insensitive, wide-incident angle, and miniaturization properties. When applying the radome to microstrip antenna, the bandwidth of the antenna is improved to 40%, the gain is enhanced in the whole operating frequency band, especially at 9.6 GHz, the gain is increased by 6.7 dB; at the same time, the in-band radar cross section(RCS) is reduced significantly, and the largest reduction exceeds 12.7 dB. Experimental results are in good agreement with the simulated ones, which verifies that the novel FSS spatial filter can be used to increase the gain of broadband antenna, enhance the directivity, improve the bandwidth, and reduce the in-band RCS; to sum up, it can be applied to broadband antennas to improve their radiation as well as scattering performance at one time.

Based on the electromagnetic properties of complementary split ring resonator (CSRR), a novel artificial magnetic conductor (AMC), CSRR-AMC, is designed. The comparison of the reflection phase with square patch AMC reveals its features of miniaturization and multiband in-phase reflection, under X- and Y-polarized normal incident waves, respectively. Inspired by the reflection phase difference under different incident conditions, we have designed a wideband low rader cross-section (RCS) reflection screen with a single CSRR-AMC structure. The CSRR-AMC arrays are orthogonally positioned and the backscattering energy is reduced as a result of phase cancellation. Measured results demonstrate that -10dB RCS reduction is achieved in a wide frequency range of 7.38–10.47 GHz and the relative bandwidth is 34.6%, providing a new method for the design of wideband low scattering structure.

We have designed and fabricated a broadband low radar cross section (RCS) metamaterial absorber with polarization-independent characteristic based on electromagnetic resonance. The absorbing mechanism is investigated by means of electric as well as magnetic field distributions and retrieval algorithm. Absorbing and RCS properties of this absorber are performed by waveguide experiment and free space measurements, respectively. Theoretical analysis indicates that the absorber can produce electric and magnetic resonances in different locations for fixed frequency, while for different frequencies, it can provide energy losses in different dielectric layers, which effectively lowers the electromagnetic couplings and consequently keep the strong absorbing properties in a wide frequency range. Experimental results show that the designed absorber with 3-layer structure achieves a frequency range which is 4.25 times as that of 1-layer absorber with absorptivity above 90%, its relative bandwidth for RCS reduction above 10dB is 5.1%. The cell size and thickness of the designed absorber are very small, i.e., 0.17 and 0.015 of the working wavelength. Thus the low-RCS property of the absorber is wide-angle and polarization-independent. In addition, the working frequency range of the absorber can be adjusted by properly designing the layers.

In order to reduce the radar cross section (RCS) of antenna, a wideband-enhanced ultra-thin metamaterial absorber is designed by reducing the distance between the two absorption peaks due to the double resonances. The absorber is composed of two metallic layers separated by a lossy dielectric spacer. The top layer consists of a single-square loop with four splits on the four sides and a square metal patch in the center and the bottom one is of a solid metal. A dipole resonance and an LC resonance are caused by the structure of the metamaterial absorber. By fine adjusting geometry parameters of the structure, we can obtain a polarization-insensitive and wide-incident-angle ultra-thin absorber whose absorption values are 91.6% and 96.5%. On condition that thickness is less than 0.01λ the absorber has a full-width at half-maximum of 8.2%. The absorber is applied to the circularly polarized tilted beam antenna for reducing RCS. Simulated and experimented results show that the RCS reduction of antenna is above 3 dB within the operation band from 5.5 GHz to 6.5 GHz, the gain is not changed and the bandwidth is increased due to the improvement of axial ratio. At the resonance, the most reduction values exceed 8 dBsm and 11 dBsm while the absorber has a good characteristic of RCS reduction at the boresight direction from -36° to +36°.