Multibeam Dual-Circularly Polarized Reflectarray for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles

This paper presents a multibeam dual-circularly polarized (CP) reflectarray for connected and autonomous vehicles.

The developed reflectarray uses one aperture to realize dualband and multibeam operation. At each frequency band, there

are two simultaneously shaped beams with different circular

polarizations. Totally four beams are obtained with a single feed

and each of the beams can be independently controlled. A simple

but effective polarization suppression technique is introduced to

suppress cross polarizations at large scan angles so the CP beam

of the reflectarray can be configured to point at large angles.

Thus, the present reflectarray is suitable to be applied to vehicles

for reliable high data-rate satellite communications. To validate

the design concept, an X-band prototype was designed, fabricated

and measured. The design concept is flexible and can be applied

to the design of dual-band, dual-CP reflectarray with different

frequencies ratios. Moreover, the present design can also be

extended to a continuous beam-steering design by incorporating

phase shifters.