Antenna array-based metasurface for multi-scenario wide-angle polarization-insensitive radar cross section reduction

Abstract

In this paper a novel antenna array-based metasurface design method for wide-angle and polarization-insensitive radar cross section (RCS) reduction has been proposed, which can be applied to a variety of RCS reduction scenarios. The proposed metasurface subarray design employs a dual-element antenna array in which the two ports of each element are connected through a Wilkinson power divider, and meanwhile, two power dividers are connected through a microstrip line with a lumped resistor. The use of dual-polarized wide-beam antennas enables the metasurface array to respond to arbitrarily polarized as well as wide-angle obliquely incident electromagnetic waves. A portion of the electromagnetic waves received will be absorbed by the lumped resistor and converted into heat, while the remaining portion will be canceled in the space, achieving the low RCS characteristic. The proof-of-concept experiments have been conducted in several application scenarios for RCS reduction, including a metasurface array integrated with a microstrip antenna, a densely distributed dual-element metasurface array, and a randomly distributed dual-element metasurface array. Simulated and measured results confirm that the proposed method opens up a new avenue for more flexible and versatile RCS reduction devices and systems.