A Circularly Polarized Folded Reflectarray Antenna for Ka-band Satellite Communications Uplinks

A low-profile circularly polarized folded reflectarray antenna (CPFRA) with linearly polarized (LP) feed antenna is presented in this paper. Polarizing grid usually used as the subreflector of traditional FRA is replaced by a polarization-sensitive frequency selective surface (FSS) in the CPFRA design. The polarization-sensitive FSS is designed to convert the LP incidence into the CP wave within its passband while reflecting the orthogonal LP incident wave over its operating frequency band. A CPFRA prototype was designed for Ka band satellite communications uplinks with its performance demonstrated in this paper. Good performance of the proposed CPFRA has been achieved with its 3dB axial ratio (AR) frequency band covering from 28.9 to 30.6GHz and 3dB gain frequency band from 28.8 to 32.7GHz. Additionally, the proposed CPFRA retains the excellent characterisits of FRA as high efficiency, low profile, etc.