Shaped Parallel-Plate Lens for Mechanical Wide-Angle Beam Steering
This article presents a parallel-plate lens beamformer for continuous wide-angle scanning. The design is based on a compact dual-lens system with extended scanning range and is optimized using a previously developed geometrical optics technique. Beam steering is accomplished with a mechanical feed s...
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Published in | IEEE transactions on antennas and propagation Vol. 69; no. 12; pp. 8158 - 8169 |
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Main Authors | , , , , , |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
New York
IEEE
01.12.2021
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE) Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers |
Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | This article presents a parallel-plate lens beamformer for continuous wide-angle scanning. The design is based on a compact dual-lens system with extended scanning range and is optimized using a previously developed geometrical optics technique. Beam steering is accomplished with a mechanical feed system based on the noncontact characteristic of groove gap waveguides, offering large bandwidth, low profile, and mechanical ruggedness. The proposed concept is validated by an all-metal prototype of a <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">20.5\lambda </tex-math></inline-formula> lens operating in the uplink Ka-band allocated to satellite communications (27.5-31 GHz). Good agreement is obtained between the simulated and measured performances. The measured return loss is greater than 12 dB over the entire frequency band and beyond. High scanning performances are achieved over an angular range of ±50° (±14 beamwidths), with maximum scan losses in the order of 3 dB and good pattern stability over the entire band. The proposed solution is particularly suited for next-generation satellite terminals requiring compact broadband antennas with continuous beam-steering capability over a large angular range. |
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ISSN: | 0018-926X 1558-2221 |
DOI: | 10.1109/TAP.2021.3090789 |