Prospective Applications of Microwave Reflectarray Antennas to the Design and Fabrication of Future Radio Telescopes

Abstract

The size, cost, and complexity of radio telescopes and their instrumentation have grown enormously during the last few decades. The vast majority of new technology employed by radio astronomy has been developed for the industrial market, and the technology in use by today’s best radio telescopes is 20 to 30 years old. In particular, the antenna technology has changed very slowly, and thus, an important question is whether novel antenna technologies might bring down the cost of collecting area, since efficiency and accuracy compromises become much more costly for large radio telescopes. In this chapter, we discuss the strengths and weaknesses of specific new technologies, and in particular reflectarrays, which have been developed mainly for remote sensing and satellite communications, that might lead to a great leap forward in the design and fabrication of antennas for radio astronomy.