Novel Metal Only, Low Profile, High Gain Stepped Reflector Antennas for Future 5G mmWave and CubeSat Applications

Several emerging technologies such as next generation CubeSats and 5G mm Wave networks require antennas capable of providing high data rates while maintaining a small form factor. This paper describes a systematic approach for synthesizing high gain stepped reflector antennas with profile heights of the order of a wavelength, resulting in a very small form factor for mmWave bands. The reflector aperture is comprised of confocal parabolic sections which scatter in phase, resulting in a focused far field beam. Both symmetric and offset configurations are discussed. In particular, two distinct methods of synthesizing low profile offset reflectors are presented in this work, which makes it possible to meet application specific design constraints.