Single layer printed reflectarrays at MM-Waves

This paper talks about a method of conception and design constraints on mm-wave reflectarrays. The developed tool allows us to plan quickly the behavior of large reflectarray (several tens of wavelength) according to parameters as illumination law or manufacturing tolerance with good agreement with measurements. An ultra-low side-lobe reflectarrays of 130 mm diameter is designed. The structure combines the advantages of a reflectarray with an offset source and those of a specific primary source, exhibiting a prolate radiation pattern, having very low side lobe levels. The maximum gain obtained at 94 GHz is 40 dBi and the side-lobe level is inferior to -28 dB. Finally, a simultaneous multi-lobe antenna is designed at 94 GHz. The primary source is an open-ended waveguide and the phase profile is calculated by the program introduced in the first part. In this case, the four main lobes are placed in the same plane and for equal to -30, -10, 10, 30°. This reflectarray can be used for actual and future generations of automotive radar. The first obtained results are encouraging and show the validity of the concept. Solution retained here is a low-cost solution. The proposed structures are developed on a single layer substrate and fabricated using standard photolithographic techniques. The aim of this article is to show that we can obtain interesting results with relatively simple and low-cost solutions, but also to show the limits of these type of solutions.