Design and Manufacture of Cosecant-Squared Complementary Reflectarrays for Low-Cost Applications

A novel solution for the manufacturing of a reflectarray antenna with cosecant-squared radiation pattern is presented. The unit cell simply consists of a 3-D printed nylon grid inserted in between two thick metallic plates. To introduce the required phase delay, C and reverse C slots are laser cut into the plate illuminated by the feeder. This solution allows obtaining an efficient, robust, and compact antenna with low-cost manufacturing process, even for no mass production. Measurements confirm the feasibility of the proposed solution and show its performances.