Background With the development of anti-radar technology, deceptive jamming has received increasing attention. Radar cross-section (RCS) manipulation, which usually involves the RCS augmentation of radar decoys and the RCS suppression of true platforms, has been considered as an effective measure to deceive the radar by intentionally controlling the amplitude of the scattered wave from the target. However, the RCS augmentation and suppression designs are typically studied separately in literature, which indicates the limited range of the scattered wave amplitude manipulation.

Purpose To address the need for quantitative control of the scattered wave amplitude over a broad dynamic range, this paper presents an integrated design capable of enhancing and suppressing the echo amplitude based on the reflective phase-gradient metasurface.

Methods For amplitude enhancement, the required surface reflection phase distribution was derived from the perspective of reflected field strength to achieve a specified level of enhancement. For amplitude suppression, the necessary reflection phase difference among supercells was analyzed based on the array theory to achieve a specified level of suppression. A tunable unit cell embedded with a varactor diode and its bias network was designed to dynamically provide the reflection phase required for quantitative control.

Results The circuit/full-wave co-simulation of a finite array demonstrates that, under normal or oblique incidence of a plane electromagnetic wave, the bistatic or backscattered wave amplitude can be quantitatively enhanced within the range of at least 24.9 dB, while the specularly reflected wave amplitude can be quantitatively suppressed within the range of at least 15.43 dB.

Conclusions The quantitative manipulation of the scattered wave amplitude is of practical significance for radar countermeasures and precise electromagnetic camouflage.