Low-Profile Flexible Wideband Microwave Absorber With Resistive Ink

Abstract

This paper presents a wideband low-profile flexible microwave absorber for military applications following stealth technology. The absorber is designed on low-cost flexible composite substrate of Kapton and Neoprene Rubber with a total thickness of $0.045 \lambda_{0}$ at the lowest absorption frequency, i.e., 1.5 GHz. The 80 % absorption fractional bandwidth is 126 %, i.e., 1.5-6.6 GHz for all polarizationangles and a wide range of incident angles. The monostatic RCS reduction to the proposed absorber is 18 dB compared to that of a same-sized metal sheet at around the frequency of 5 GHz.