Wideband radar cross-section reduction using plasma-based checkerboard metasurface

Abstract

For stealth technology, in order to overcome the limitations of thin-layer plasma for electromagnetic waves attenuation and further broaden the radar cross-section (RCS) reduction (RCSR) band of the metasurface, the plasma-based checkerboard metasurface composed of plasma and checkerboard metasurface is investigated to achieve better RCSR. We designed a checkerboard metasurface which can achieve abnormal reflection to reduce RCS and whose −10 dB RCSR bandwidth is from 8.1 to 14.5 GHz, the RCSR principle of it lies in the backscattering cancellation, which depends on the phase difference of artificial magnetic conductor (AMC) units. The designed plasma-based checkerboard metasurface is a thin composite structure, including a checkerboard metasurface, a plasma layer, and an air gap which is between them. Full wave simulations confirm that the plasma-based checkerboard metasurface’s ‒10 dB RCS reduction bandwidth and RCS reduction amplitude, are both increased under different polarized waves compared with the only single plasma or the only metasurface. We also introduced the reason and mechanism of the interaction between plasma and the checkerboard metasurface to improve the RCSR effect in detail. As plasma-based checkerboard metasurface does not need the plasma to be too thick for plasma stealth, its application in practical scenarios is easier to implement.