Design of a Contoured-Beam Reflectarray for a EuTELSAT European Coverage Using a Stacked-Patch Element Characterized by an Artificial Neural Network

The design of a reflectarray for satellite applications is accomplished in this letter. The use of full-wave electromagnetic methods to compute the reflectarray elements in the design process has been replaced by the characterization of the reflectarray elements by artificial neural networks (ANNs). The antenna is designed to provide coverage in Ku-band to a European region defined by EuTELSAT. The results obtained using ANN in the design are compared to those obtained from the method of moments (MoM), and a good agreement is achieved. The speedup factor between reflectarray optimization by both the ANN and the MoM is in the order of 102. Hence, the use of ANN is presented here as a promising fast technique in the design of reflectarrays.

[1]  Qi-Jun Zhang,et al.  High-Dimensional Neural-Network Technique and Applications to Microwave Filter Modeling , 2010, IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques.

[2]  Herve Aubert,et al.  Equivalent electrical circuit model for design and optimization of MEMS-controlled reflectarray phase shifter cells , 2011, Proceedings of the 5th European Conference on Antennas and Propagation (EUCAP).

[3]  Adrian J. Shepherd,et al.  Second-order methods for neural networks - fast and reliable training methods for multi-layer perceptrons , 1997, Perspectives in neural computing.

[4]  Juan Zapata,et al.  CAD of rectangular-waveguide H-plane circuits by segmentation, finite elements and artificial neural networks , 2001 .

[5]  J. Agustín Zornoza,et al.  Efficient phase‐only synthesis of contoured‐beam patterns for very large reflectarrays , 2004 .

[6]  J. A. Zornoza,et al.  Three-layer printed reflectarrays for contoured beam space applications , 2004, IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation.

[7]  P. Pirinoli,et al.  Neural Network characterization of microstrip patches for reflectarray optimization , 2009, 2009 3rd European Conference on Antennas and Propagation.

[8]  Adrian J. Shepherd,et al.  Second-Order Methods for Neural Networks , 1997 .

[9]  Changhua Wan,et al.  Efficient computation of generalized scattering matrix for analyzing multilayered periodic structures , 1995 .

[10]  J. Encinar.  Design of two-layer printed reflectarrays using patches of variable size , 2001 .

[11]  P. Robustillo,et al.  ANN Characterization of Multi-Layer Reflectarray Elements for Contoured-Beam Space Antennas in the Ku-Band , 2012, IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation.

[12]  G. Toso,et al.  A Transmit-Receive Reflectarray Antenna for Direct Broadcast Satellite Applications , 2011, IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation.

[13]  P. Robustillo,et al.  ANN element characterization for reflectarray antenna optimization , 2011, Proceedings of the 5th European Conference on Antennas and Propagation (EUCAP).

[14]  Simon Haykin,et al.  Neural Networks: A Comprehensive Foundation , 1998 .

[15]  Pole-zero matching technique for multilayered periodic structures with application to the design of reflectarray antennas , 2011, 2011 IEEE International Symposium on Antennas and Propagation (APSURSI).

[16]  N. Misran,et al.  Design optimisation of ring elements for broadband reflectarray antennas , 2003 .

[17]  David M. Pozar,et al.  A shaped-beam microstrip patch reflectarray , 1999 .