Design of Phased Array Antenna Based on Electronically Reconfigurable Metasurface and Cylindrical Reflector

An electronically reconfigurable metasurface based low-cost phased array antenna is presented in this paper. The antenna is composed of a parabolic reflector feeding network, a slotted waveguide antenna (SWA) array, and several electronically reconfigurable metasurfaces which are loaded in the waveguide. The cylindrical wave generated by the source in the planar plate waveguide (PPW) of the bottom antenna layer is converted into the plane wave by the parabolic reflector and used to excite the top SWA array. In order to realize low-cost beam scanning capability, the front end of each independent SWA is loaded with electrically reconfigurable metasurfaces with 360° phase modulation capability. The proposed antenna can realize a continuously ± 30° beam scanning range with maximum -13.0 dB side lobe level (SLL) and a gain variation is -2.0 dB. Due to the advantages of low-cost and convenient beam scanning capability, the proposed antenna is very suitable for some low-cost radar and communication systems.