Dielectric Resonator Antenna Reflectarrays Mounted on or Embedded in Conformal Surfaces

In this paper, reflectarrays mounted on or embedded in cylindrical and spherical surfaces are designed, analyzed, and simulated at 11.5 GHz for satellite applications. A unit cell consists of a square dielectric resonator antenna (DRA) mounted on or embedded in metallic conformal ground plane is investigated. The radiation characteristics of the designed reflectarrays are investigated and compared with that of planar reflectarray. A 13 x 13 planar reflectarray antenna on the - plane was designed. By varying the length of the DRA element between 2 mm and 6.2 mm a full range from 0° to 360° phase shift can be obtained. The size of each element is equivalent to a compensation phase shift. A maximum directivity of 24.3 dB was achieved while the side lobes were below -12.94 dB in -plane and -15.79 dB in the -plane for planar reflectarray. A Full-wave analysis using the finite integration technique (FIT) is applied. The results are validated by comparing with that calculated by transmission line method (TLM).