Wideband 3-D-Printed Transmit-Reflect-Array Antenna With Independent Beam Control

Abstract

This paper proposes a wideband 3D-printed transmit-reflect-array (TRA) antenna. The transmission and reflection functions of this TRA antenna are determined by the polarization of the incident electromagnetic wave. The proposed TRA element is composed of a dielectric post and three copper wires, which can be realized by the low-cost 3D printing. Attributed to the independent control of transmission and reflection phase shift of the proposed element within a wide bandwidth, the proposed TRA antenna can generate two independent transmission and reflection beams over a wide bandwidth. A 12 × 12 TRA is designed, fabricated, and measured to verify the design concept. The measured results show that a peak gain of 24.4 dBi with a bandwidth of 46.8% (18–29 GHz) for the transmitarray function and a peak gain of 22.9 dBi with a bandwidth of 52.2% (17–29 GHz) for the reflectarray function are achieved simultaneously by the 3D-printed TRA antenna. The wide bandwidth, high gain, independent beam control capability, combined transmit/reflectarray functions and low fabrication cost make the proposed antenna appealing for various wireless applications.