Recent Developments and Challenges on Beam Steering Characteristics of Reconfigurable Transmitarray Antennas

This paper highlights recent developments and challenges on beam steering characteristics of reconfigurable transmitarray antennas. It introduces the operating principle of beam forming/beam steering high gain transmitarray antennas to enable the user to opt for economical and high performance solutions. A transmitarray antenna typically consists of a source antenna and a phase transformation structure. The incident waves generated from the source antenna is tilted using the phase transformation structure in a desired direction to steer the beam. Moreover, the phase transformation structure alters the incident wavefront to a plane wavefront using phase change characteristics. In order to steer a beam to a specific desired angle, it can be divided into two methods. There is a method of applying a transmitarray with a variable transmission phase change or a method of changing the shape of the wavefront of the source antenna. This type of beam forming/beam steering high gain antenna has been mainly studied from the point of view of high efficiency, low profile, and low cost. Several solutions of transmitarray unit cells have been presented in the literature, using PIN diodes, varactors, MEMS switches, and microfluids enable electronics to realize reconfigurable characteristics of transmitarray antennas. This paper analyzes the characteristics of various beam steering high gain reconfigurable transmitarrays (RTA) and highlights the future opportunities and challenges of the structure design for transmitarray antennas. This paper also highlights the challenges and gaps in terahertz and optical frequencies related to future work due to the structure complexity and lack of components’ availability. Moreover, the challenges and limitations related to multi-bit structures and dual-band requirements are presented.