A Novel Reconfigurable Miniaturized Phase Shifter for 2-D Beam Steering 2-Bit Array Applications

• Published in: IEEE microwave and wireless components letters Vol. 31; no. 4; pp. 381 - 384
• Main Authors: Hu, Jiadong, Li, Yue, Zhang, Zhijun
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 01.04.2021
• Subjects: 2-Bit array; 2-D beam scanning; Antenna measurements; Beam steering; Insertion loss; miniaturized technology; P-i-n diodes; Phase measurement; Phase shifters; Phased arrays; reconfigurable phase shifter
• ISSN: 1531-1309; 1558-1764
• DOI: 10.1109/LMWC.2021.3057223

In this letter, a novel reconfigurable 0°/90° phase shifter is proposed. Compared with the conventional phase shifters, the proposed one uses fewer reconfigurable devices and becomes more compact. Two states of a meander line are used to generate the 90° phase shift, making it suitable for the 2-D beam steering 2-bit array application. A phase shifter prototype on F4B was measured to validate its design theory. Four phase states (i.e., 0°, 90°, 180°, and 270°) are realized through the combination of the phase shifter and the array radiation element. A <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">2 \times 4 </tex-math></inline-formula> array working at 1.5 GHz was fabricated and measured to verify the performance of the proposed phase shifter. When different phase states are switched, the measured peak gain of the array varies from 10.6 to 11.2 dBi.