Broadband and Tunable RCS Reduction using High-order Reflections and Salisbury-type Absorption Mechanisms

Abstract

In this paper, a broadband and tunable radar cross section (RCS) reduction structure is proposed by using the hybrid physical mechanism that is based on high-order reflections and Salisbury-type absorption. Our design combines the high-index grating structure with a traditional Salisbury screen in which the lossy sheet is made of a graphene structure. When it is illuminated by a plane wave with normal incidence, the Salisbury screen can absorb the incoming wave, and the introducing high-index grating structure could further reduce the backward scattering wave by generating high-order reflection beams, which broadens the RCS reduction bandwidth. In addition, the RCS reduction level can be dynamically controlled by tuning the surface resistance of the graphene layer. Simulated results show that the proposed structure can realize tunable RCS reduction between 4.1 and 18 GHz under normal incidence with different graphene resistances. Experimental results are in accordance with those of the simulation results. In addition, the scattering field distributions and the plots of surface power loss density have been illustrated to analyze the RCS-reduction mechanism of our structure.