A Broadband, Wide-Angle, and Dual-Polarized 1-bit Reconfigurable Reflect-Array at Ka-Band With Independent Control of Polarizations

A broadband 1-bit reconfigurable reflect-array antenna (RRA) featuring independent dual-polarized beam-scanning capability is reported at <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Ka</i>-Band. By jointly exploiting two modes containing an electric resonance and a magnetic resonance, a novel dual-polarized reconfigurable reflective cell with 1-bit phase resolution and simple laminates is proposed. Within each RRA cell, only two orthogonally-aligned PIN diodes are utilized to provide independent dynamic phase control respectively for the two orthogonal linear polarizations. For experimental verification, a 20 × 20-cell dual-polarized RRA is fabricated and measured. The RRA prototype is controlled by a field programmable gate array (FPGA)-based logic module, where each cell is connected with two separate bias lines. Three sets of phase masks are employed, each with an optimized reference phase, for achieving a flattened gain response over a wide frequency range. The RRA prototype exhibits a 1-dB gain bandwidth wider than 27%, a peak gain of higher than 23 dBi, and a peak aperture efficiency of about 22% for both polarizations. Moreover, within the entire operating frequency band, the beams of both polarizations support a wide-angle scanning coverage within the range of −60° to +60°. The proposed dual-polarized RRA could be a promising candidate for millimeter-wave wireless communication and sensing/imaging systems.