Folded Reflectarray With Spherical Polarizer

This article concerns a novel solution for folded reflectarray antennas which makes use of a curved (spherical) polarizer. The proposed solution provides a high gain and stable performances on a large bandwidth. A gridded substrate is also employed to minimize the dielectric losses in each reflectarray element, allowing the use of low-cost dielectric materials. Furthermore, 3-D printing technology has been used to manufacture both the polarizer and the reflectarray substrate. A linearly polarized, 28 dBi gain, Ku-band, entirely plastic prototype has been designed, manufactured, and tested. Measurements confirm the feasibility of the proposed solution and show its good performances (54% aperture efficiency and 1 dB down gain bandwidth of about 17%).