Patent ID: 7791552

Claim:
A method of manufacturing a cellular reflectarray antenna for communication with a satellite, said reflectarray antenna arranged in an m by n matrix of printed passive elements, comprising the steps of: determining a delay φm,n for each element of said m by n matrix of printed passive elements of said cellular reflectarray antenna; said step of determining a delay for each element of said m by n matrix of printed passive elements includes sub-steps of: determining the longitude and latitude of the location in which the reflectarray antenna will operate; determining elevation and azimuth angles of the reflectarray with respect to an orbiting satellite; converting the elevation and azimuth angles to spherical, Cartesian and then a rotated coordinate system to obtain theta (θ) and phi (φ); converting theta (θ) and phi (φ) to theta 0 (θ 0 ) and phi 0 (φ 0 ) expressed as radians; determining Δβ m,n, the pointing vector phase delay, for a given ρ equal to d/λ for a specific array where d is the inter-element spacing and λ is the wavelength; determining Δφ m,n , the spherical front phase delay, for a given radius from the central printed passive element and/or from measured data from the feed horn; selecting a substrate dielectric constant and thickness equal to ¼λ g for the frequency of operation, and, determining said delay φm,n for each element of said m by n matrix of printed passive elements as a function of Δβ m,n and Δφ m,n .