Flexible and Portable Textile-Reflectarray Backed by Frequency Selective Surface

Abstract

A center fed C-band portable and rollable textile-reflectarray (TRA) using frequency selective surface (FSS) is presented. The radiating elements are embroidered on the textile samples using conductive thread. The TRA is made of $15 \times 15$ elements ( $8.25\times 8.25\lambda ^{2}$ at 5.8 GHz) for broadside radiations. The embroidered flexible FSS aims to replace the solid ground plane. The element size variation backed by the FSS provides a $\text{330}^{\circ }$ phase variation, which is adequate to design the TRA. Wideband multilayer stacked circular patches are utilized as a feed for the TRA. The antenna provides a measured 7.3% of 0.5 dB gain bandwidth, $-$ 15 dB sidelobe level, $-$ 25 dB cross polarization, and 29% maximum aperture efficiency.