Co-Design of Single-Layer RCS-Reducing Surface and Antenna Array Based on AMC Technique

A co-design of radar cross section (RCS) reducing surface and array antenna on a single-layer printed board is presented in this paper. To achieve this goal, two kinds of artificial magnetic conductors (AMCs) are designed and optimized. The first kind of AMC shares the same geometry with the array element and thus is simultaneously used as the array element. The other kind of AMC generates opposed-phased reflections for a normal incident wave, and when they are in a checkerboard configuration, the RCS is reduced via phase cancellation of opposed-phased reflections. In the range of 10 GHz to 16 GHz, the designed bi-functional surface achieves an 8 dB decline in monostatic RCS, while the array antenna obtains a gain of 15 dBi, a side-lobe less than −10 dB, and a cross-polarization less than −20 dB at 13.5 GHz. To validate the calculation results, a prototype is fabricated and measured. To feed the array antenna, a T-type power divider network is etched under the ground and the array is fed via coupling slots on the ground. The measured results agree with the simulation results.