A wideband flexible electro-textiles material linear-to-circular polarizing metasurface for S-band CubeSat

Abstract

In this paper, a flexible linear-to-circular polarizer FSS-based surface made from a single layer of cloth is introduced. Two orthogonal strips serve as the foundation for the proposed structure's architecture, with a central aperture in the unit cell for the pico-satellites aimed towards the S-Band. A wearable material called Shieldit Super serves as the conducting fabric in the unit cell, while Felt serves as the substrate. For the working center frequency of 2.41 GHz, the unit cell size is 0.32λ × 0.26λ × 0.02λ. It has a 3 dB axial ratio bandwidth (ARBW) of 42.90% and an axial ratio of 0.08 dB at 2.41 GHz, which is very close to zero. In addition, the FSS metasurface provides a bandwidth of up to 56.84% with 90% conversion efficiency. The polarizing surface is then created by multiplying this unit cell by a 6 × 6 array. The proposed structure's performance is proven by placing it in front of a patch antenna operating at 2.41 GHz. In addition to efficiently converting linearly polarized waves into circularly polarized waves, the antenna's performance improved when paired with the polarizing surface, as measured by the realized gain, which went from 3.14 dBi to 7.33 dBi.