Development of Novel K-band Beam Steerable Reflectarray for CubeSat Internet of Space

The vision of providing global network coverage with a CubeSat constellation to enable Internet of things has escalated the demand for beam steerable antennas that are compatible with the tight form factor and limited power budget on CubeSats. In this work, we conceptualize a circularly polarized beam steerable reflectarray for CubeSat applications in K-band. The reflectarray unit cell consists of four Archimedean spiral arms and can be switched by PIN diodes to provide four discrete phase states. Beam scan in the desired elevation and azimuth angle can be obtained by appropriately addressing the diodes in each unit cell. Reflectarray prototypes were measured and RHCP beam scan up to 60° in elevation over the frequency band of 17.8 - 20.2 GHz has been achieved.