A True Metasurface Antenna.

Area of Science:

• Electromagnetics and Applied Physics
• Antenna Theory and Design
• Metamaterials and Metasurfaces

Background:

• Conventional array antennas often suffer from mutual coupling issues due to element spacing.
• Electrically-small resonators present challenges in achieving efficient impedance matching within antenna arrays.
• Metasurfaces offer unique electromagnetic properties for novel antenna designs.

Purpose of the Study:

• To present a true metasurface antenna utilizing electrically-small resonators.
• To demonstrate effective impedance matching in a compact antenna configuration.
• To explore the beam steering capabilities of the proposed metasurface antenna.

Main Methods:

• Design and simulation of a metasurface antenna with closely spaced, electrically-small resonators.
• Utilizing a corporate feed network for efficient power distribution.
• Fabrication and experimental validation of a prototype antenna operating at 3 GHz.

Main Results:

• The metasurface antenna achieved a gain of 12 dBi within a 1.2λ × 1.2λ aperture.
• Experimental results showed good agreement with numerical simulations.
• Numerical simulations confirmed the antenna's beam steering capability through resonator phasing.

Conclusions:

• The developed metasurface antenna overcomes traditional spacing limitations for improved impedance matching.
• The antenna demonstrates high gain and validates the potential of electrically-small resonators in metasurface applications.
• The proposed design offers a pathway towards reconfigurable and compact antenna systems with beam steering functionality.