Open AccessA Foldable Reflectarray on a Hexagonal Twist Origami Structure
Author(s) -
Antonio J. Rubio,
Abdul-Sattar Kaddour,
Collin Ynchausti,
Spencer Magleby,
Larry L. Howell,
Stavros V. Georgakopoulos
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
ieee open journal of antennas and propagation
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2637-6431
DOI - 10.1109/ojap.2021.3127312
Subject(s) - fields, waves and electromagnetics , communication, networking and broadcast technologies , aerospace
In this paper, a novel deployable flat panel reflectarray antenna (RA) is designed on an origami folding pattern for Small Satellite applications. The RA aperture deploys into a hexagonal geometry that achieves an aperture efficiency of a least 60%, 10–20% higher than current rectangular apertures. The modified hexagonal twist folding structure can achieve high volume packing efficiency, which is 75%, and simple deployment with one degree of freedom. The mechanical and electromagnetic design considerations for two variations of our proposed structure, flat and offset panels, are presented. The aperture surface area of both structures is $58\lambda ^{2}$ . Both structures are designed to operate at 16 GHz and exhibit a realized gain that is greater than 26.4 dBi. Prototypes are fabricated for the two structures and measured. Measurements show good correlation with the simulations.