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Metamaterial-Surface Flat-Panel Antenna Technology METAMATERIAL-SURFACE FLAT-PANEL ANTENNA TECHNOLOGY 18 JUNE 2019 793-00006-000-REV01 ©2019 Kymeta Corporation. All Rights Reserved. KYMETA, KĀLO, CONNECTED BY KYMETA, KYMETACARE, and MTENNA are trademarks of Kymeta Corporation, with registrations or pending applications in the U.S. and/or other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. TABLE OF CONTENTS 1 Introduction ....................................................................................................................................................................1 2 Metamaterials and metasurfaces.............................................................................................................................1 3 Kymeta metamaterial-surface antenna technology (MSAT) ............................................................................2 4 Kymeta MSAT compared to active phased arrays ...............................................................................................3 5 Kymeta metamaterial-surface flat-panel antenna performance....................................................................4 6 Conclusion ......................................................................................................................................................................5 7 References ......................................................................................................................................................................5 ©2019 Kymeta Corporation. All Rights Reserved. KYMETA, KĀLO, CONNECTED BY KYMETA, KYMETACARE, and MTENNA are trademarks of Kymeta Corporation, with registrations or pending applications in the U.S. and/or other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. 1 | INTRODUCTION In 2017, Kymeta introduced the world’s first commercial flat-panel, electronically scanned antenna (ESA) for satellite communications based on a revolutionary metamaterial surface technology. The light weight, low profile, and lack of moving parts allow this antenna to be easily mounted on land vehicles, aircraft, and maritime vessels to provide them with global high-throughput connectivity. This paper explains the basics of the metamaterial-surface antenna technology (MSAT) and describes Kymeta metamaterial-surface flat- panel satellite antenna advantages and performance characteristics. 2 | METAMATERIALS AND METASURFACES Metamaterials are synthetic materials that are engineered to provide electromagnetic properties not found naturally, such as a negative index of refraction [1]. Such a material is called a negative-index metamaterial. In natural materials, properties such as magnetic permeability and electric permittivity are determined by the response of the material’s atoms and molecules to the electromagnetic wave passing through it. But in metamaterials, these properties are determined by the periodic arrangement of scattering structures that are smaller than the wavelength of the electromagnetic waves they are interacting with. These small structures are fabricated from conventional materials such as metals and plastics, but their size, shape, orientation, and configuration can be designed to interact with electromagnetic waves to create finely tuned resonances and other unconventional properties in certain frequency bands (Figure 1). These special properties can be used for a wide variety of applications; for example, to enhance the efficiency and directivity of microwave patch antennas. Continuing research in metamaterials is yielding devices such as microwave antennas, radar absorbers, lenses, and phase compensators, and optical superlenses that are not diffraction limited [2]. FIGURE 1. METAMATERIALS HAVE SUBWAVELENGTH STRUCTURES MADE OF CONVENTIONAL MATERIALS THAT YIELD UNCONVENTIONAL PROPERTIES. ©2019 Kymeta Corporation. All Rights Reserved. KYMETA, KĀLO, CONNECTED BY KYMETA, KYMETACARE, and MTENNA are trademarks of Kymeta Corporation, with registrations or pending applications in the U.S. and/or other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. 1 If electrically small (subwavelength) scatterers are arranged in a regular array on a surface that is electrically thin, similar results as those achieved by three-dimensional metamaterials can be obtained. Metamaterial surfaces, or metasurfaces, have the advantage of taking up less physical space than metamaterials and can also have less loss. They’re also less expensive, since scattering elements can be printed using standard lithographic techniques. 3 | KYMETA METAMATERIAL-SURFACE ANTENNA TECHNOLOGY (MSAT) Kymeta’s implementation of metasurface technology is distinct from the approaches described in Section 2. Principally, Kymeta utilizes a diffractive metasurface, rather than a refractive one to define an antenna beam holographically. This holographic approach to beam forming inherently relies on tuning the resonance frequency of each antenna element to implement a dynamically reconfigurable diffraction grating. To create an antenna, the metasurface, which is printed with hundreds or thousands of elements in a periodic array, is placed adjacent to the broad wall of a rectangular waveguide feed structure that couples all the elements to a radio frequency wave generated by a single transmitter (Figure 2). Each of the elements is tuned by computer control to resonate at a frequency and scatter (radiate) the guided wave. The elements that are physically spaced such that their radiated waves are in phase (coherent) at the desired scan angle of the antenna beam (which is the sum of the waves radiated by the elements) are tuned to scatter strongly, while the elements that are out of phase are detuned so as not to radiate (Figure 3). The scan angle is defined as the angle between the beam and an axis that is perpendicular to the plane of the antenna metasurface. FIGURE 2. ANTENNA CROSS SECTION. ©2019 Kymeta Corporation. All Rights Reserved. KYMETA, KĀLO, CONNECTED BY KYMETA, KYMETACARE, and MTENNA are trademarks of Kymeta Corporation, with registrations or pending applications in the U.S. and/or other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. 2 FIGURE 3. TUNED ELEMENTS ON THE METASURFACE RADIATE STRONGLY, WHILE DETUNED ELEMENTS RADIATE WEAKLY. This method of forming an electromagnetic beam is known as holographic diffraction, and Kymeta’s commercial approach to fabrication is called metamaterial-surface antenna technology (MSAT). The metamaterial-surface flat-panel satellite antenna technology developed by Kymeta is well suited to mobile applications. Compared to conventional parabolic dish antennas, which must be mechanically pointed at a satellite using a gimbal mount, it is slim and light, and since the beam is electrically steered to track satellites, it has no moving parts. Kymeta’s Ku-band antenna is about 30 inches wide and can be horizontally mounted on vehicles and vessels to provide high throughput two-way communications anywhere a satellite is available. Note that the bandwidth of the antenna beam is not determined by the resonance bandwidth of the elements (a limitation of traditional metamaterials approaches), but by the tunable range of the elements. For this reason, the 70 cm Ku-band Kymeta™ u7 antenna can achieve the bandwidth needed for high throughput communications—up to 10 Mbps with high throughput geostationary satellites (GEO HTS). The Kymeta metasurface uses the controllable permittivity of liquid crystals to tune each radiating element, and the design is compatible with liquid crystal display (LCD) fabrication processes, positioning this technology for high-volume production by leveraging the established manufacturing infrastructure of the LCD industry. 4 | KYMETA MSAT COMPARED TO ACTIVE PHASED ARRAYS Another type of electrically steered flat-panel antenna is the active phased array. This also forms and steers a beam by the constructive and destructive interference of waves emitted (or received) by a regular array of many small elements. However, this type of array has an RF transmitter/receiver circuit driving each element to control the amplitude and phase of the element’s radiation. A computer determines the pattern of in-phase elements needed to produce the desired beam direction. Kymeta’s metamaterial-surface flat-panel satellite antenna technology has some advantages over active phased array antennas, including cost, form factor, and performance. ©2019 Kymeta Corporation. All Rights Reserved. KYMETA, KĀLO, CONNECTED BY KYMETA, KYMETACARE, and MTENNA are trademarks of Kymeta Corporation, with registrations or pending applications in the U.S. and/or other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. 3 Cost: Due to the large number of discrete RF circuits, the active phased array has a high material cost that scales with the size of the aperture. Additionally, these elements must be individually calibrated (a 1- to 2-day process) because the RF chips have both gain and phase variation. Contrarily, Kymeta’s TFT manufacturing process is precise, so Kymeta antennas require significantly less calibration time. This simplicity reduces overall cost, making connecting with the Kymeta antenna the affordable option. Form factor: The single-aperture phased array antenna can’t operate in full-duplex mode. Kymeta antenna has a single aperture for transmit and receive, whereas the active phased array antennas on the market today require two separate apertures. This increases size and
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