A Low Cost and Highly Efficient Metamaterial Reflector Antenna

The design of an efficient, metamaterial-based reflector antenna capable of operation at high power is presented. Metamaterial unit cells are comprised of end-loaded dipoles (ELDs) with capacitive lumped elements at their center. Enhanced power handling is realized by mitigating field enhancement through rounded edges and using appropriate high voltage capacitors as loads. The metamaterial is designed to have discrete, configurable reflection phase through choice of capacitor on the ELDs. Unit cells are fabricated and patterned to a square, flat reflector surface and configured for broadside reflection with an offset-fed horn antenna. Simulated and measured radiation patterns of the complete antenna system are presented with excellent agreement. High-power testing verifies the ability of the metasurface to withstand extreme incident electric field strengths.