Experimental Active Cloaking of a Metallic Polygonal Cylinder

Abstract

A surface conformal array of conventional antennas can be configured to actively cloak an object, preventing it from scattering an impinging electromagnetic wave. This technique is advantageous as it can be implemented with commercially available components while its active nature can mitigate passivity based constraints. Although efforts have been made to conceptually expand this technique to more complex scenarios, experimental validation past simple uniform scatterers is lacking. This paper seeks to remedy this deficiency by presenting the experimental demonstration of a low profile active cloak, constructed from commercially available monopoles, designed to conceal a metallic polygonal target. The design and configuration of the cloak and experimental apparatus are explored. Field measurements, taken when the target is illuminated by a 1.2 GHz cylindrical wave, indicate an average scattering suppression of 5.6 dB. Overall performance was found to be impacted by design and apparatus imperfections.