Design of a multi-layer Ka-band frequency selective surface-backed reflectarray for satellite applications

Professor Yongmeng Liu from the Harbin Institute of Technology in China talks about the research behind his Letter ‘Optical-transparent Wi-Fi bandpass mesh-coated frequency selective surface’ on page 381. Professor Yongmeng Liu Our group's work is focused on designing novel frequency selective surfaces (FSSs) as security wallpaper for optical windows of electromagnetic filtering and interference shielding. A FSS is an array of periodic apertures perforated on a conducting sheet or metallic patches which exhibits bandpass or bandstop responses. A traditional FSS generally has very low optical transmittance and cannot be easily applied as a dual-mode filter to achieve simultaneous high optical transparency and Wi-Fi bandpass filtering. The solution is to create novel periodic structures that have unique and fascinating features attracting us to this field of research. We have reported a FSS periodic structure fabricated using a UV lithography technique to achieve simultaneous high optical transparency and Wi-Fi bandpass filtering. The FSS is a resonance cavity structure with a periodic array of apertures removed from an optically transparent conductive mesh coating. Simulation and experimental results show that the resonance centre frequency of the mesh-coated FSS is about 5.3 GHz with transmittance loss of −2dB, while its optical transmittance is greater than 87.5% in a waveband of 1.35 to 3.3 µm. Such a FSS has the merits of ameliorable electromagnetic shielding effectiveness and improvable optical transmittance by optimising the thickness of the mesh layer. Our FSS can be used as security wallpaper for optical windows to solve the problem of transmission security of Wi-Fi communications. Generally, transparent conductive mesh coating is widely used to provide both strong RF/microwave shielding and optical transmittance, however this seriously attenuates Wi-Fi transmittance. A bandpass FSS is used to provide spatial filtering, but suffers from low optical transmittance due to the large fraction of the area obscured by metallic films. Neither of these existing technologies can meet the dual requirement of optics/Wi-Fi filtering for security wallpaper. It is a significant advancement to develop a periodic structure to achieve simultaneous optical transparency and stable Wi-Fi bandpass. One potential application is as security wallpaper for securing confidential business data. Another application is to enhance the transmission of the specific signal of interest through optical windows. State-of-the-art FSS technology includes indium tin oxide (ITO). This kind of ITO-FSS is used for energy saving windows since the ITO layer reflects a significant portion of long and short infrared wave energy. However, the restrictive relationship between conductivity and optical transparency of ITO is the fatal flaw in this implementation. We are working on a project to design conductive metallic meshes to shield radio-frequency/microwave interference for optical windows to optimise mesh patterns and parameters to improve optical transmission and to minimise the high-order optical diffraction effect, as well as enhance electromagnetic shielding effectiveness. Challenges will be to further optimise the structure of the mesh-coated FSS to improve the performance, specifically the sheet resistance, bandwidth and the transmission stability of incidence angles and polarisations. The FSS has high sheet resistance which will impact Wi-Fi transmission, however the FSS has adjustable thickness to enhance its conductivity and improve Wi-Fi transmission performance while having no impact on optical transparency. Additional challenges include developing ways to integrate the mesh-coated FSS with optical windows of existing buildings. Fortunately we can fabricate the FSS on flexible PET films and add the composite films to each side of existing optical windows. Over the next few years novel periodic electromagnetic structures will integrate metamaterials, active circuit elements and other new techniques to develop security wallpapers to protect communications security. The trend of periodic electromagnetic structures for electromagnetic filtering and shielding will evolve from expensive, heavy and passive to low-cost, lightweight, active and self-tuning. We would like to see increasing numbers of new periodic electromagnetic structures being developed throughout numerous frequency ranges, perhaps even the entire electromagnetic spectrum. We believe all these beautiful periodic electromagnetic structures will be brought into real-world use and will make our lives better!

A convoluted frequency selective surface (FSS) is proposed to provide the unit cell dimension as small as 4.84% of the free space wavelength at resonant frequency. The FSS exhibits high resonant stability for various polarizations and incident angles. Its simple geometry is beneficial for not only easy design but also realizing the single and dual bandpass performances. By introducing an inductance in series connected with the traditional LC parallel resonant circuit, an improved equivalent circuit is established, which can describe the FSS frequency responses more accurately. Furthermore, a set of closed forms related to circuit and dimension parameters are developed. It can serve as the substitute of the full-wave solver to enhance the FSS design efficiency significantly. Finally, a dual bandpass FSS operating at 2.5 and 4.95 GHz was fabricated and measured. The measurement results exhibit satisfactory consistency with the full-wave simulation results.

Here, a silicon‐substrate‐based four element antenna system is investigated by using a coplanar frequency selective surface (FSS) as a novel parallel reflector to improve radiation and transmission characteristics of the antennas. The four antennas are arranged around the square FSS, and one of the antennas is used as the transmitting element, while the other three as the receiving ones. It is found that, owing to the stopband filtering and the linearly changing reflection phase of the designed coplanar FSS, the gain and directivity of the transmitting antenna have been greatly improved, and that the antenna system transmission coefficients, including S 21 , S 31 and S 41 , have been significantly increased. Two types of the antenna systems have been designed and fabricated on a P‐type silicon wafer substrate for the cases with and without a coplanar FSS reflector. The measured S‐parameters are essentially consistent with those simulated. In comparison with the case without the FSS, the transmission coefficients of S 21 , S 31 and S 41 for the system with the FSS have been increased about 6.42, 5.97 and 5.89 dB at the center frequency of 5.42 GHz, respectively. Furthermore, the proposed coplanar FSS exhibits distinct advantage of low‐profile compared to the conventional vertical FSS reflector.

본 논문은 결함 모드 특성을 갖는 주파수 선택적 표면에 의한 WCDMA에서 동작하는 안테나의 이득 향상을 위한 설계와 제작에 대해 다룬다. 제안된 결함 모드 특성을 갖는 FSS 단위 셀은 동일한 크기의 일반적인 단위 셀보다 낮은 주파수 대역에서 적용이 가능하므로 단위 셀의 크기를 66 % 정도 축소시키었다. 단위 셀의 최적화 된 배열 개수는 <TEX>$13{\times}13$</TEX>으로 하였으며, WCDMA 송신 대역과 수신 대역에서 동작하는 패치 안테나를 각각 설계하였다. 사각형 구조의 단일 패치 안테나를 사용하여 WCDMA 대역을 포함한 동작 특성을 나타내도록 하였다. 모의 실험한 결과, 송신 대역에서 제안된 FSS-1 복합체 구조(송신 대역의 패치 안테나와 FSS)의 이득은 9.98 dBi에서 13.28 dBi로 3.3 dB 향상되었다. 수신 대역에서 제안된 FSS-2 복합체 구조(수신 대역의 패치 안테나와 FSS)의 이득은 9.81 dBi에서 15.34 dBi로 5.53 dB 향상되었다 측정 결과 제작된 FSS 복합체 안테나는 약 337 MHz(<TEX>$1.87{\sim}2.21GHz$</TEX>)의 대역폭을 가지며 1.95 GHz에서 11.39 dBi, 2.05 GHz에서 13.11 dBi, 2.14 GHz에서 11.09 dBi의 이득을 나타내었고, 방사 효율은 81 %임을 확인하였다. 제안된 FSS 복합체 안테나는 높은 이득을 갖기 때문에 WCDMA 중계기 시스템에 응용될 수 있을 것으로 사료된다. In this paper, FSS(Frequency Selective Surface) using defect mode characteristic is proposed. The unit cell using defect mode characteristic of the proposed FSS is offered lower resonant frequency in the same cell size. The number of suitable array is optimized 13 by 13. Also, the patch antennas operated in WCDMA(Wideband Code Division Multiple Access) Tx band and Rx band are designed for the comparison. The gain value of proposed FSS-1 complex structure (the patch antenna of Tx band and FSS) is improved 3.3 dB from 9.98 dBi to 13.28 dBi in Tx band. The gain value of proposed FSS-2 complex structure(the patch antenna of Rx band and FSS) is improved 5.53 dB from 9.81 dBi to 15.34 dBi in Rx band. Also the measured impedance bandwidth(<TEX>$VSWR{\leq}2$</TEX>) of manufactured <TEX>$13{\times}13$</TEX> array antenna is from 337 MHz(1.87 to 2.21 GHz). The measured radiation gain is 11.39 dBi(1.94 GHz), 13.11 dBi(2.05 GHz), 11.09 dBi(2.14 GHz). The measured radiation efficiency is 81 %. Because the proposed FSS structure has more higher gain, it will be applied to antenna of WCDMA repeater system.

In this paper, a dual-band Frequency Selective Surface (FSS) absorber is presented for Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) security. The FSS absorber is designed for two frequencies of interest, i.e., 2.45 GHz (lower band) and 5.25 GHz (upper band), respectively. FSS design consists of two layers; first layer consists of conducting square-loop elements while second layer consists of resistive square-loop elements, placed in-front of a conducting FSS layer. The proposed FSS design provides good frequency stability for oblique incidences for perpendicular (TE) and parallel (TM) polarizations. It provides better absorption rate for 2.45 GHz and 5.25 GHz frequency bands and allow the transmission of other microwave frequencies. Also, the proposed FSS design reduces multipath fading of additional WLAN signals which occurred due to the placement of conducting FSS layer. Presented results demonstrate that the proposed FSS design has a stable frequency response for the desired frequency bands for TE and TM polarizations with good absorption rate when the incident wave angle varied from 0<SUP>0</SUP> to 45<SUP>0</SUP>.

Sandwich structures with frequency selective surfaces have been widely used to fabricate low-observable radomes. Traditional frequency selective surfaces were made of metals, such as copper and aluminum. There were problems when used the frequency selective surfaces with the sandwich structures, such as a bonding layer and thermal mismatch. Because of the thermal mismatch between the sandwich structures and the metals, mechanical properties of the sandwich structures usually decreased. To avoid these disadvantages, a new type of composite frequency selective surface was put forward in this study. A four-legged slot-array frequency selective surface and a square-aperture array frequency selective surface were fabricated by cutting carbon fiber/epoxy composites. Free-space method and finite-element method were carried out to evaluate the electromagnetic transmission characteristics of the frequency selective surface specimens, respectively. Results show that the composite frequency selective surface with four-legged slot array can realize the function of frequency selection, and its minimum transmission loss can be decreased by increasing the electrical conductivities of the composite material, adjusting the thickness, and increasing the aperture-to-cell ratio of it. For the composite frequency selective surface with square-aperture array, grating lobes come closely after its resonant frequency, although its minimum transmission loss is very close to zero.

A dual-polarized dielectric resonator antenna (DRA) fed by two orthogonal microstrip lines has been explored employing coupled-resonator spatial filter (CRSF) frequency selective surface (FSS) as superstrate which, to the best of our knowledge, is reported for the first time. The DRA with εr = 20 has been used as a primary radiator, excites fundamental TE111 mode. A CRSF FSS has been placed above the ground plane at a distance of half wavelength and a 3.4 dBi increased gain has been found compared to the gain without FSS. Using Arlon AD270 both the antenna and the FSS have been fabricated and experimental measurements have been carried out. The proposed antenna with FSS offers an impedance bandwidth of 5.1% covering frequency from 6.4 to 6.74 GHz with a maximum gain of 8.9 dBi at the resonant frequency for the port1. For the port2, the DRA with FSS resonates at 6.54 GHz with an impedance bandwidth of 5.3% covering frequency from 6.37 to 6.72 GHz. A good agreement has been observed between the measured and simulated results. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 58:1415–1420, 2016

This paper examines the frequency selective surface (FSS) in the reflectarray antenna for reduction of radar cross section (RCS). A 12×12 novel reflectarray antenna with double layer FSS is used for verify RCS reduction. The double layer FSS structure is settled behind of the reflectarray antenna as a ground. FSS backed reflectarray antenna and ground plane backed reflectarray antenna is simulated on RCS performance. The simulation results show that double layer FSS structure is reduced RCS level between 2 GHz–12 GHz when compared with ground plane backed reflectarray antenna. Gain and radiation performance of FSS backed and ground plane backed reflectarray antenna are compared to each other.

Fractal geometries have been extensively implemented in the design of multiband antenna and frequency selective surface (FSS). For example, convoluted and Hilbert patch elements were first proposed to reduce the unit cell size of FSS (Parker and El Sheikh, IEE Proc.-H, 138, 19–22, 1991.) A fractal FSS with self-similar Sierpinski dipole array was shown to have two stop bands (J. Romeu and Y. Rahmat-Samii, IEEE Trans., AP-48, 1097–1104, 2000). However, its resonant frequencies are rather sensitive to incident angles and polarizations. Minkowski patch FSS and Sierpinski carpet fractals have been shown to provide two or three stop bands with dual polarization capability (J.P. Gianvittorio, et. al., IEEE Trans., AP-51, 3088–3096, 2003.) Recently miniature band-pass FSS with fractal antenna-filter-antenna arrays was designed and demonstrated with good frequency selectivity (S. Zheng, et. al., IEEE AWPL, 11, 240–243, 2012.) A dual band fractal FSS with a 3:1 reflection to pass band ratio and significantly improved resonant frequency stability was proposed by the author (T.K. Wu, Microwave Optical Tech. Letters, 54, 833–835, 2012).

Frequency selective surfaces (FSS) have been widely used for many years in antennas applications, like beams multiplexer, or filtering for microwave and optical signals. We present a new application for FSS. For the former applications, FSS are free standing or backed by a perfect dielectric. It can be also embedded into a dielectric medium or sandwiched between different dielectric media. In the new application, FSS are used as components of radar absorbing materials (RAM). Classical RAM are composed of several layers of dielectric or magnetic media. For example, the two most famous absorbing screens are the Dallenbach and the Salisbury screens. The first is a short circuited lossy dielectric (or magnetic) layer, while the second is composed of two layers. The Salisbury screen consists of a thin resistive film deposited on a perfect metal-backed dielectric layer. We show how a FSS can modify and improve the absorption performance of Dallenbach screens. The FSS is deposited on the outer surface of the Dallenbach screen in this new application. We show numerically that the absorption band can be either shifted or broadened by the presence of an FSS. We illustrate the numerical results with measurements. The theoretical aspects of the computation of the interaction between the electromagnetic field and the structure are discussed, and the properties of the new absorbing screen are examined.

Electromagnetic transmission characteristics of composite frequency selective surfaces coated with conductive polymer–silver paste

The miniaturized frequency selective surface (FSS) obtained by connecting a number of limbs with two flexible adjustable transmission zeros is proposed in this paper. The proposed FSS has two transmission zeros on both sides of the passband. The effects of the geometrical parameters on the bandwidth of transmission zeros and pole are analyzed. Adjusting the numbers of the limbs in the FSS can make a great difference to the ratio of the frequencies of the two working transmission zeros, and the coupling between the adjacent FSS unit cells is used to adjust the ratio of the frequencies of the two working transmission zeros slightly. The simulated results show that the ratio of the frequencies of the two working transmission zeros has wide adjustable range. The effects of the ways to connect the limbs on the ratio of the frequencies of the two working transmission zeros are analyzed. The prototype of the FSS with two limbs is fabricated and tested to verify the feasibility of the proposed method. The measured results show that the FSS designed by the proposed method has good polarization and angel stabilities, and this proves the proposed way is effective. This FSS is a good candidate to isolate the communication systems with two working bands.

In this paper, a rectangular metallic ring FSS (Frequency Selective Surfaces) with parallel metallic strips for multi band applications are characterized by the WCIP (Wave Concept Iterative Procedure) method. The proposed FSS structures are made of metallic elements that are simultaneously independent in the spatial domain and uncoupled in the spectral domain. Thus the FSS multiband behavior can be achieved only by a building process based on independent metallic elements in both domains. The resonant characteristics of the proposed FSS are determined. The structure shows three resonant frequencies when the incident wave is x-polarized and three resonant frequencies when the source is polarized in the orthogonal direction. A variation in the length of the strips and the rectangular ring allows a fine tuning in the FSS resonant frequencies to give raise to tuned bandwidths. The suppression of a resonant frequency can be insured either by the elimination of the responsible metallic strip or by the insertion of a PIN diode switch. Three FSS structures are manufactured and characterized. The FSS bandwidth can be enhanced in both perpendicular FSS exciting source directions by only varying the strips lengths and the ring dimensions to the corresponding resonant frequencies. A good agreement is obtained when the WCIP results are compared with the simulations of COMSOL Multiphysics software and experiment.

In this paper, a frequency selective surface (FSS) element has been presented based on substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) technology for improved EM performance. The SIW cavity results in the generation of additional resonance, which combines with the resonance of FSS shows a relatively wider bandwidth (BW). Furthermore, the FSS based on SIW exhibits a sharp roll-off performance with flat transmission characteristics. The FSS element is designed to operate in Ku-band near 15.0 GHz for satellite application. Two design examples have been reported for the dual band and broadband response. The estimated results have proven the superiority of the SIW cavity FSS over its conventional form.

This letter presents the design and testing of a novel triple-layer frequency selective surface (FSS) with ultraminiaturization for electromagnetic shielding applications. The proposed unit cell is constructed using meandered lines running along the three layers and they are interconnected using metalized vias to increase the electrical length of FSS. The FSS is designed to offer band stop resonance at L-band frequency with a foot-print of 0.022 λ <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">o</sub> × 0.022 λ <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">o</sub> with a thickness of 0.006 λ <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">o</sub> and it provides at least 38% of miniaturization in comparison with similar literature. To validate the transmission performance, a prototype FSS with a periodicity of 6 mm is fabricated. The FSS consists of 2500 elements arranged in a 50 × 50 square lattice. The transmission performance of the proposed FSS is verified using simulation and experiment. The proposed FSS has rotational symmetry and hence it is polarization insensitive. Furthermore, the FSS offers excellent angular stability up to the maximum incidence angle of 60° under both transverse electric and transverse magnetic modes of operation. The proposed FSS can be used for shielding applications in global positioning systems tracking and aircraft surveillance systems.