Flexible Dual-Band Dual-Beam Radiation of Reflector Antennas by Embedding Resonant Phase Alignment Elements for Power Refocusing

This article presents a dual-band composite reflector antenna by embedding an array of metallic phase alignment elements (PAEs) on a selected area of reflector. As a result, this phase-configurable reflector may radiate two relatively arbitrary beams at two widely separated frequency bands, respectively. In this concept, a conventional parabolic surface is first created for ordinary field radiation by a focal feed in the low-frequency band. Afterward, a feed of high-frequency band is offset from the focal point to result in defocused radiation due to the phase distortion of reflection from the parabolic reflector. Metallic PAEs are subsequently implemented on the reflector to configure their phases of reflections for distortion compensation, and thus to refocus the radiation power along a desired direction. Here, the resonance of PAEs also specifies a valid high-frequency range. In this article, the methodology is first presented with radiation discrepancy evaluated to validate the design concept, which is further validated by full-wave simulations. Numerical examples are presented to demonstrate the feasibility.