Equivalent dielectric description of transmit-arrays as an efficient and accurate method of analysis

Abstract

Transmit-arrays (TAs) provide cost-effective solutions for various antenna applications, including satellite and terrestrial communications. Usually, these antennas have electrically large apertures, comprising thousands of fine-tuned subwavelength unit-cells. This makes full-wave simulations demanding in terms of computational resources, constraining the antenna design and optimization. Herein, we present an efficient method for the reduction of the TA's computational complexity that still provides accurate results for the main figures of merit of the antenna. For the chosen example, the simulation was 3 times faster and required 50% less memory. Yet, as the complexity of the problem is further scaled, this method is expected to become even more effective.