Reconfigurable Antennas and Wave Processing Surfaces

拟议的研究计划旨在开发新的可重构天线概念，以增强电信卫星反射天线的性能和耐用性，以及用于天气预报的雷达天线的波束转向能力。对于卫星天线，研究将集中在场选择发射阵列表面。目标是能够在卫星执行任务期间通过在馈电系统中插入小型轻型平面多层表面来重新配置卫星的覆盖区域。这些表面对冲击在天线主抛物面反射器上的波施加空间相位调制，因此起着类似于主反射器整形的作用。卫星对地球覆盖范围的这种重新配置可以扩大其任务并有助于可持续发展。通过对发射阵列进行更精细的控制，也有可能减轻卫星间的干扰。雷达天线相关工作的目标是提出新的低成本技术，使敏捷波束扫描成为可能。特别是，将研究插入波导中的磁驱动“床钉”结构，目的是实现可以在高水平射频功率下工作的低成本移相器。有了这种移相器，就有可能在天气预报机构使用的雷达上安装电子操纵天线，并提高预测极端气候事件的能力。在衬底集成电路技术和周期性加载泄漏波导中实现反射射线的重构也将被考虑。

The proposed research program is aiming at the development of new reconfigurable antenna concepts that can enhance the performance and durability of telecommunication satellites reflector antennas and the beam steering capabilities of radar antennas such as those used for weather forecasting.For satellite antennas, the research will focus on field-selectable transmitarray surfaces. The objective is to be able to reconfigure the coverage zone of a satellite during its mission by inserting small lightweight planar multilayer surfaces in the feed system. These surfaces impose a spatial phase modulation of the wave impinging on the antenna's main parabolic reflector, and therefore play a role analogous to main reflector shaping. Such reconfiguration of a satellite's earth coverage can extend its mission and contribute to sustainable development. With a finer control on the transmitarray it would also be possible to mitigate inter-satellite interference.The objective of the work related to radar antennas is to propose new low-cost technologies that would allow agile beam scanning. In particular, magnetically actuated "bed-of-nails" structures inserted in waveguides will be studied, with the aim of realizing a low-cost phase shifter that can operate at high levels of radio frequency power. With such phase shifters, it would for instance become possible to implement electronically steerable antennas in radars used by weather forecasting agencies, and improve the capability to predict extreme climatic events. Reconfiguration of reflectarrays implemented in the substrate-integrated circuit technology and of periodically loaded leaky waveguides will also be considered.