Deployable Multi-Faceted Reflectarray Antenna in Offset Configuration With Band Enhancement

A multifaceted reflectarray that follows a parabolic cylinder structure is presented to improve the antenna bandwidth compared to a conventional reflectarray. The antenna is suitable to be used in SmallSats since it is low profile and low cost, and can be easily folded and deployed on this kind of platform. To evaluate the characteristics of this solution and the ability to work in different polarizations, two multifaceted demonstrators have been designed, manufactured, and tested. They generate a pencil beam pattern in the Ka-band and are compared to a single-facet offset reflectarray of equivalent aperture size. The multifaceted structure conveniently exploits both the unit cell properties and the geometry to achieve a significant improvement in antenna bandwidth compared to the single-facet version with a better tradeoff between antenna characteristics and performance achieved.