Reflectarray Compact Antenna Test Range With Controlled Aperture Disturbance Fields

Abstract

This letter focuses on the aperture disturbance fields, including the specular reflection and edge diffraction, in the reflectarray compact antenna test range (RACR). The aperture disturbance mechanism is revealed for the near-field application of the reflectarray (RA). Based on that, several strategies are proposed to enhance the quiet zone (QZ) performance. The specular disturbance is suppressed by steering the QZ away from the specular zone. The central cell reference phase of the RA can also control the specular disturbance. To reduce the edge diffraction, the square array aperture is suggested to be rotated by 45°. A 460 mm × 460 mm square RA designed under the guidance of the strategies is validated by the simulations and experiments. The amplitude peak-to-peak (PP) 1.6 dB and phase PP 10.4° are achieved in the experimental QZ, which demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed method.