Oblique Wide-Angle Multi-Sector Metamaterial Absorber for Space Applications

This article presents the design, realization and measurement of lightweight absorbing material for space applications. The electromagnetic absorber, operating on the [2 GHz, 2.3 GHz] frequency band, is designed for oblique incidence ranging from 35° to 65°. Wide-angle designs are demonstrated to be particularly challenging at oblique incidence and an approach consisting in dividing the surface in two different sectors with respect to the incoming angle is proposed. A specific measurement setup is presented in order to characterize this new kind of evolutive absorber. The measurement results show that the sectorial absorber achieves a reflection coefficient inferior to −11.5 dB, corresponding to an absorptivity above 0.965 on the frequency band [2 GHz, 2.3 GHz] for both TE and TM polarizations for angles of incidence varying from 35° to 65°.