Flexible and Portable Textile-Reflectarray Backed by Frequency Selective Surface

A center fed C-band portable and rollable textile-reflectarray (TRA) using frequency selective surface (FSS) is presented. The radiating elements are embroidered on the textile samples using conductive thread. The TRA is made of 15 x 15 elements (8.25 x 8.25 lambda(2) at 5.8 GHz) for broadside radiations. The embroidered flexible FSS aims to replace the solid ground plane. The element size variation backed by the FSS provides a 330 degrees phase variation, which is adequate to design the TRA. Wide-band multilayer stacked circular patches are utilized as a feed for the TRA. The antenna provides a measured 7.3% of 0.5 dB gain bandwidth, -15 dB sidelobe level, -25 dB cross polarization, and 29% maximum aperture efficiency.