Experimental Validation of Tensorial Metasurfaces for the Implementation of Radiating Aperture Field Distributions

This communication presents an experimental validation of a previously developed method for the generation of aperture field distributions using modulated tensorial metasurfaces. The validation is performed through the design of two novel antennas working at the frequency of 9.5 GHz: both a broadside circularly polarized antenna and a four-beam antenna having a radial Hamming amplitude law. The manufactured tensorial metasurfaces are composed of subwavelength “camembert”-shaped patches printed over a grounded dielectric substrate. Radiation patterns are measured and compared with the simulation results for the two antennas. The near-field measurements are used to extract information of the realized aperture field distribution and to highlight undesired effects (as the edge diffraction effect and the spurious feeder radiation) not modeled in numerical 2.5-D analysis software. Finally, conclusions are drawn.