Wideband radar cross section reduction based on absorptive coding metasurface with compound stealth mechanism

A scheme of combing wave absorption and phase cancellation mechanisms for widening radar cross section(RCS)reduction band is proposed.An absorptive coding metasurface implementing this scheme is derived from traditional circuit analog absorber(CAA)composed of resistive ring elements which characterize dual resonances behavior.It is constructed by replacing some of the CAA elements by another kind of resistive ring elements which is singly resonant in between the original two resonant bands and has reflection phase opposite to that of the original elements at resonance.Hence the developed metasurface achieves an improved low-RCS band over which the lower and higher sub-bands are mainly contributed by wave absorption mainly while the middle sub-band is formed by joint effect of wave absorption and antiphase cancellation mechanisms.The polarization-independent wideband RCS reduction property of the metasurface is validated by full-wave simulation results of a preliminary and an advanced design examples which employ the same element configuration but different element layout schemes as partitioned distribution and random coding.The advanced design also exhibits broadband bistatic low-RCS property and keeps a stable specular RCS reduction performance with regard to incident elevation angle up to 35◦.The advanced design is fabricated and the experimental results of the sample agrees qualitatively well with their simulated counterparts.The measured figure of merit(i.e.,low-RCS bandwidth ratio versus electrical thickness)of the sample is 40.572,which is superior to or comparable with those for most of other existing metasurface with compound RCS reduction mechanism.The proposed compound metasurface technique also features simple structure,light weight,low cost and easy fabrication compared with other techniques.This makes it promising in applications such as radar stealth and electromagnetic compatibility.

Wideband radar cross-section reduction using plasma-based checkerboard metasurface

For stealth technology,in order to overcome the limitations of thin-layer plasma for electromagnetic waves attenuation and further broaden the radar cross-section(RCS)reduction(RCSR)band of the metasurface,the plasma-based checkerboard metasurface composed of plasma and checkerboard metasurface is investigated to achieve better RCSR.We designed a checkerboard metasurface which can achieve abnormal reflection to reduce RCS and whose-10d B RCSR bandwidth is from 8.1 to 14.5 GHz,the RCSR principle of it lies in the backscattering cancellation,which depends on the phase difference of artificial magnetic conductor(AMC)units.The designed plasma-based checkerboard metasurface is a thin composite structure,including a checkerboard metasurface,a plasma layer,and an air gap which is between them.Full wave simulations confirm that the plasma-based checkerboard metasurface’s–10 dB RCS reduction bandwidth and RCS reduction amplitude,are both increased under different polarized waves compared with the only single plasma or the only metasurface.We also introduced the reason and mechanism of the interaction between plasma and the checkerboard metasurface to improve the RCSR effect in detail.As plasma-based checkerboard metasurface does not need the plasma to be too thick for plasma stealth,its application in practical scenarios is easier to implement.

Ultra-wideband low radar cross-section metasurface and its application on waveguide slot antenna array

A novel approach devoted to achieving ultra-wideband radar cross section reduction（RCSR） of a waveguide slot antenna array（WGSAA） while maintaining its radiation performance is proposed. Three kinds of artificial magnetic conductors（AMCs） tiles consisting of three types of basic units resonant at different frequencies are designed and arranged in a novel quadruple-triangle-type configuration to create a composite planar metasurface. The proposed metasurface is characterized by low radar feature over an ultra-wideband based on the principle of phase cancellation. Both simulated and measured results demonstrate that after the composite metasurface is used to cover part of the antenna array, an ultrawideband RCSR involving in-band and out-of-band is achieved for co-and cross-polarized incident waves based on energy cancellation, while the radiation performance is well retained. The proposed method is simple, low-cost, and easy-tofabricate, providing a new method for ultra-wideband RCSR of an antenna array. Moreover, the method proposed in this paper can easily be applied to other antenna architectures.

Design of Tapered Novel AMC Chessboard Reflector for Broadband RCS Reduction

An artificial magnetic conductor(AMC)chessboard reflector is designed which shows low backscattered radar cross sections(RCS)in a broad frequency band in this paper.Designed by the phase cancellation principle,a conventional chessboard low RCS metasurface can be formed by polarization-dependent mushroom-shaped AMCs.Two new features are added to this design based on the conventional chessboard metasurface.Firstly,the long edge of the metallic patch on the AMC element is concave to obtain a broader bandwidth.Then,the width of the patch in each AMC block is tapered in one direction to further extend the operating bandwidth for RCS reduction.The backscattered RCS of the tapered AMC reflector is numerically investigated and compared with a non-tapered one.It is found that by introducing the above features,an RCS reduction greater than 10.dB can be obtained by the reflectors with relative bandwidth of 46%in the X-band.

Wideband low-scattering metasurface with an in-band reconfigurable transparent window

Active metasurfaces with dynamically reconfigurable functionalities are highly demanded in various practical applications.Here,we propose a wideband low-scattering metasurface that can realize an in-band reconfigurable transparent window by altering the operation states of the PIN diodes loaded on the structures.The metasurface is composed of a band-pass frequency selective surface(FSS)sandwiched between two polarization conversion metasurfaces(PCMs).PIN diodes are integrated into the FSS to switch the transparent window,while a checkerboard configuration is applied in PCMs for the diffusive-reflective function.A sample with 20×20 elements is designed,fabricated,and experimentally verified.Both simulated and measured results show that the in-band functions can be dynamically switched between beam-splitting scattering and high transmission by controlling the biasing states of the diodes,while low backscattering can be attained outside the passband.Furthermore,the resonant structures of FSS also play the role of feeding lines,thus significantly eliminating extra interference compared with conventional feeding networks.We envision that the proposed metasurface may provide new possibilities for the development of an intelligent stealth platform and its antenna applications.

Analysis and applications of a frequency selective surface via a random distribution method

A novel frequency selective surface （FSS） for reducing radar cross section （RCS） is proposed in this paper. This FSS is based on the random distribution method, so it can be called random surface. In this paper, the stacked patches serving as periodic elements are employed for RCS reduction. Previous work has demonstrated the efficiency by utilizing the microstrip patches, especially for the reflectarray. First, the relevant theory of the method is described. Then a sample of a three-layer variable-sized stacked patch random surface with a dimension of 260 mm x 260 mm is simulated, fabricated, and measured in order to demonstrate the validity of the proposed design. For the normal incidence, the 8-dB RCS reduction can be achieved both by the simulation and the measurement in 8 GHz-13 GHz. The oblique incidence of 30° is also investigated, in which the 7-dB RCS reduction can be obtained in a frequency range of 8 GHz-14 GHz.

Design of multi-band metasurface antenna array with low RCS performance

In this paper, a multi-band metasurface（MS） antenna array with low radar cross section（RCS） performance is proposed and measured. Firstly, a 44 antenna array is composed of four 22 Jerusalem cross structure antenna arrays working at different frequency bands, which is aimed at enhancing the bandwidth effectively. Then, each antenna can be seen as a unit of MS in spite of adding the feeding structure. Based on phase cancellation principle, the MS is arranged into a chessboard configuration in order to realize wideband RCS reduction. Thus, excellent radiation and scattering characteristics are obtained simultaneously. Simulated and measured results indicate that this work provides a novel method to achieve bandwidth expansion as well as wideband RCS reduction of the antenna array.

Design of a wideband random phase gradient metasurface by using line-shaped element

Based on phase randomization theory, a method for manufacturing metasurface with diffuse scatter performance is proposed. By using the line-shaped elements with random rotate angles and random distributing positions, the metasurface can achieve good diffusion scatter performance with polarization independent characteristic. This paper studies the effects of the length of line-shaped elements on the metasurface response frequency and the radar cross section (RCS) reduction bandwidth. The simulated result shows that the wideband properties of metasurface benefit from two different length line-shaped elements. The proposed metasurface can reduce the RCS significantly for both normal and oblique incident waves. The line-shaped element is suitable for all sizes of detected objects and it can be directly sprayed on the detected object surface. To demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method, the metasurface prototype is fabricated and measured. Experimental results show that the fabricated metasur-face can effectively reduce RCS, and it has great application prospects in stealth technology. Keywords: Diffuse scatter characteristics;polarization independent;radar cross section reduction.