Radar cross section reduction of dipole antenna using checkerboard surface

The radar cross section (RCS) reduction technique for dipole antenna using checkerboard surface is investigated. The checkerboard surface is used as ground of dipole antenna instead of a metal ground. In the operating frequency band of the antenna, the checkerboard surface can reflect electromagnetic wave nearly in phase, thus the radiation performance of the antenna is not degraded. However, for the out of band case, the scattered fields by two types of subarrays of the checkerboard surface are out of phase, which lead to reduced RCS of the antenna when compared with that loaded with metal ground. Results show that broadband RCS reduction can be achieved with few influence on the radiation properties in terms of both S-parameter and radiation pattern.