Low-cost metasurface phased array technique for satellite communication system

Low earth orbit (LEO) communication satellite system has received extensive attention because of its advantages of small transmission delay, large communication capacity and low launch operation cost. However, the development of LEO communication satellite technology poses challenges to the satellite antenna system. In order to improve the communication capacity of satellite constellation and realize the tracking coverage for users, beam scanning, beam reconfiguration and multibeam coverage are crucial. Under the background of lowcost construction and operation, there is an urgent need for a lowcost antenna system scheme. As an alternative lowcost phased array technology, metasurface phased array technology and its application in beam modulation are introduced. Firstly, metasurface antenna based beamforming methods are briefly studied, then the electromagnetic manipulation and reconfiguration through metasurface are introduced. Finally, the applications of metasurface phased array in beamforming, beam scanning and multibeam generation are introduced. Compared with the traditional phased array technique, this greatly reduces the cost, and shows flexibility in electromagnetic wave polarization and frequency control. In this paper, the application of metasurface phases array in LEO communication satellite is also prospected.