A mesh reflecting surface with electrical characteristics independent on direction of electric field of incident wave

Abstract

For large deployable antennas on board satellites, a knitted wire mesh is used as reflecting surface because it is lightweight and elastic due to its knitted structure. The mesh reflecting surface has high reflectivity for the electric field parallel to the wire running direction (Takano, T. et al., 1992). This nature of the mesh, the dependence of reflectivity on the direction of the incident wave's polarization, causes a problem that the axial ratio of a circularly polarized wave degrades. We previously reported the transmission loss of mesh reflecting surfaces made from meshes woven in conventional ways (Miura, A. and Tanaka, M., IEEE Topical Conf. on Wireless Commun. Technology, 2003). We now introduce a mesh reflecting surface woven in a new manner. This mesh has an adequate reflectivity with small variation of reflectivity depending on the direction of the electric field of the incident wave. The measured electrical characteristics of this mesh reflector are reported and compared with those of two conventional mesh reflecting surfaces. Parabolic reflector antennas have been made from the three meshes and their radiation patterns with a circularly polarized incident wave have been measured.