Novel broadband reflectarray antenna with windmill-shaped elements for millimeter-wave application

A novel broadband millimeter-wave reflectarray antenna composed of windmill-shaped elements of variable lengths is proposed. Compared to the conventional single-layer reflectarray elements, the windmill-shaped elements can realize much larger phase variation range (over 600 degrees), leading to broader bandwidth. Using this technique, a 15 degrees-beam-steering reflectarray operating at 30 GHz is designed. The computed results demonstrate the agreement of the main beam steering with the design requirement, and a 1-dB gain bandwidth close to 20% is obtained. The validity of the obtained results is verified by comparing the ones generated by Ansoft High Frequency Structure Simulator (HFSS) with those produced by Ansoft Designer. The antenna is useful for millimeter-wave applications.