Onset & Offset Configuration for Ka-Band Reflectarray Antenna

Abstract:
This paper presents the first results of the study for the best configuration of a reflectarray antenna developed for a radiometer system working at 35 GHz named ViKy project. The ViKy’s reflectarray is a single layer, compact and low cost planar array of microstrip patch antenna used as flat reflector. The paper is focused on the electromagnetic property of an onset and offset configuration. The study was realized merging the analytical results coming from theoretical knowledge with the numerical results obtained by electromagnetic software’s simulations. After a brief introduction we discuss in the second section of this paper the antenna system specifications then in the third section we treat the geometrical and physical properties of the materials used in the reflectarray. In the fourth and fifth section we discuss the numerical results obtained by different commercial software packages for the dimensioning of the patches and the whole reflectarray respectively. In the sixth section we describe the analytical results; in the seventh section we show the experimental measurements and finally we conclude with a comparison between the analytical results and the measurements.