Radiation Analysis and Characteristics of Conformal Reflectarray Antennas

This paper investigates the feasibility of designing reflectarray antennas on conformal surfaces. A generalized analysis approach is presented that can be applied to compute the radiation performance of conformal reflectarray antennas. Using this approach, radiation characteristics of conformal reflectarray antennas on singly curved platforms are studied and the performances of these designs are compared with planar designs. It is demonstrated that a conformal reflectarray antenna can be a suitable choice for applications requiring high-gain antennas on curved platforms.