A low radar cross-section artificial magnetic conductor reflection screen covering X and Ku band

Abstract

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.