Optically Transparent Reflectarray Antenna Design Integrated With Solar Cells

A novel reflectarray antenna integrated with solar cells design is presented to operate in the satellite communications X-Ku band (10.7-12.7 GHz). The proposed design can be introduced as an add on feature to an existing solar cells' system ground stations. The balance between the antenna and solar cells functions is maintained using engineered optically transparent acrylic material to perform as reflectarray phase shifting as well as a transparent cover for solar cells. The design process starts by accurately modeling the solar cells effect over the radio frequency (RF) via experiments. Consequently, the reflectarray phase shifting unit cell makes use of different hole size staked perforated acrylic material incorporating the effect of the solar cells into the design. Moreover, oblique incidence analysis is rigorously incorporated into the design procedure to adequately implement the required phase shifts from the reflectarray unit cells. Furthermore, a square aperture reflectarray prototype of 11.5" side dimension is fabricated to prove the concept. The antenna provides a measured gain of 26.16 dB at 11.7 GHz. Also, the solar cells' energy harvesting is not significantly affected by the presence of the reflectarray antenna when the light source is normal to the reflectarray aperture surface.