Reactive Impedance Surface-Loaded Wideband Wide-Scanning Phased Array in Triangular Lattice

Abstract

A phased array loaded with a reactive impedance surface (RIS) is proposed for wideband wide-scanning performance. The mushroom-like RIS structure, etched on the same printed circuit board (PCB) of the antenna, is introduced as a superstrate over the antenna aperture. The reactance of the RIS structure compensates for the scan impedance variation of the antenna during the beam scanning, explained by the equivalent transmission-line model. A superior scanning performance in all azimuth planes is achieved, and the scan blindness in the H-plane is alleviated, especially. The total compact design is capable of operating over a 2.3:1 (6 –14 GHz) bandwidth in broadside and over a 1.8:1 bandwidth in ±60° E-plane, ±70° D-plane, and ±65° H-plane scanning. The array is implemented in a triangular lattice, and edge elements in the E-plane are connected to metal walls for edge effect elimination. A 45-element ( <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$5\times 9$ </tex-math></inline-formula> ) array prototype is fabricated and measured. Active reflection coefficients are calculated, and scanning patterns are synthesized.